Hevelius' 16 "Nebulosae"

Within his Prodomus Astronomiae, Hevelius described 16 nebulous objects. 14 of them are given below, as quoted in W. Derham's contribution to the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Vol. 38, No. 428 (April-June, 1733), p. 70-74. The only real objects described by Hevelius are the Andromeda Galaxy M31 (see below) and the Praesepe star cluster M44 (not in the list below, as Derham did not list recognized clusters). Nevertheless, after Derham, other astronomers including Messier spent a lot of time to look for these objects without being able to find anything significant. 
RA (1660)   Dec (1660)   Id    Description


006:04:45   39:27:57 N   M31   In Andromeda's Girdle,
300:02:53   20:01:53 S   - *   In Forehead of Capricorn,
301:59:55   19:11:30 S   - *   Another preceding the Eye of Capricorn,
302:35:09   19:36:00 S   - *   Another following it,
302:25:31   18:48:58 S   - *   One above those, adjoining to the Eye of Capricorn,
304:54:08   47:54:20 N   - *   Preceding above the Swan's Tail, and last in its N. Foot
312:10:05   53:05:20 N   - *   One following a Star above the Swan's Tail, out of the Constellation
264:52:64   48:09:10 N   -     On the outside of Hercules left Foot
265:38:37   38:05:50 N   -     In the left Leg of Hercules
252:24:03   13:18:37 N   - *   On the Top of Hercules
332:38:45   03:03:12 N   - *   At the Ear of Pegasus
272:32:34   14:23:35 S   -     In the Western Border of Sobieski's Shield
219:26:15   09:16:27 S   -     Under the Beam of the Scales of Libra
183:32:41   60:20:33 N  [M40]  Above the Back of Ursa major
An asterix (*) marks entries Messier has found to be non-existent and described in his List of Objects reported by previos observers but not found by Messier himself.

Derham lists two more objects in this list with obscure longitude coordinates: 

 12:43:00   19:01:00 S   -     In the third joint of Scorpio's Tail
 24:32:00   11:25:00 S   -     Between Scorpio's Tail and the Bow of Sagittarius
  • History of the Discovery of the Deepsky Objects
  • More Deepsky Catalogs and Observing Lists
  • Some other historical catalogs
    Hartmut Frommert (spider@seds.org)
    Christine Kronberg (smil@lrz.uni-muenchen.de)

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    Last Modification: 8 Feb 1998, 20:00 MET