Photographer's Comments
From 1758 to 1782 Charles Messier, a comet-hunting French astronomer (1730 - 1817), sought to catalog the location of deep-sky objects that could easily be mistaken for comets in small telescopes. His list contains a few more than 100 diffuse objects. The actual number is controversial because of problems with identifying certain objects. M40 may not exist at all, or at best is a dim double star pair. M102 is probably a duplicate entry of M101. Today the list is considered the sky's very best showpiece objects for deep-sky enthusiasts. All the objects can be seen with small amateur telescopes and many can be seen with binoculars.
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