Who is messier astronomy

Charles Messier, was a French Astronomer whose work on the discovery of comets led to the compilation of a catalog of deep sky objects known today as the Messier Catalogue of nebulae and star clusters. Messier was born in Lorraine, France on June 26, His father died when he was 11, and since he was the tenth of twelve children he had very little opportunity for education.

He developed an interest in astronomy as a boy after he saw the brilliant six-tailed comet of During this time, he learned to use astronomical instruments. He became a skilled observer, and was later promoted to clerk at the Marine Observatory at the Hotel de Cluny in Paris.

The astronomer Edmund Halley had predicted that the comet of would return again in late or early From that time forward, Messier devoted his life to the search for comets. In the following years he discovered as many as 21 comets by See if you can spot them yourself in the night sky. Type: Spiral galaxy Lightyears from Earth: One of the most distant objects visible to the naked eye, M81 is over 4 times as far away as M31, the Andromeda galaxy.

Type: Spiral galaxy Lightyears from Earth: 2. The closest galaxy outside our Milky Way, the first modern documentation of Andromeda was in Home Science Who was Charles Messier? Acknowledgment: A. Zezas and J. At the age of 21, Messier took a position with the Astronomer to the French Navy, where he kept careful records of the observations of the heavens. Messier went on to serve as the chief astronomer of the Marine Observatory in and later became the Astronomer of the Navy himself in He became a member of the prestigious Royal Society of London in In , at the age of 40, Messier married Marie-Francoise de Vermauchampt.

Tragically, his wife died in childbirth less than two years later, along with Messier's new son. Over the course of his career, Messier discovered forty nebulae and 13 comets. He compiled a list of nebulous objects in the Northern Hemisphere known as the Messier Catalog.

Messier died on April 12, , at the age of In , Messier began searching for a comet whose return was predicted by Edmond Halley. President de Saron, the talented mathematician who was one of the first men to realize that William Herschel's Uranus was in fact a planet, was guillotined a few days after computing the orbit of a comet that Messier had discovered the previous year.

Mechain lost his estate and all of his savings. With the coming of Napoleon Bonaparte the lives of Messier and Mechain improved greatly. Mechain was made the director of the Paris Observatory and both he and Messier were admitted to the new Academy of Sciences and the Bureau of Longitudes. Messier received the cross of the Legion of Honor from Napoleon himself. Messier made his last discovery in He continued to observe until he suffered a debilitating stroke. Two years later on April 12, he died at the age of In the twentieth century 7 objects known to have been logged by Messier were added to the Messier Catalog.

M, the final entry, was added in Today it is known that M40 is merely a binary star and M73 is only an asterism. The true identity of M91 is also questionable.