Creating the Messier Pages
These pages were created by
members
(“Mr. Guy Smiley”),
and Christine Kronberg.
The original image selection and processing was done by Mark Elowitz.
Guy McArthur has worked out the logic and original design of the pages,
created a C program to write out the Messier files,
used Bitmap Tool and XV to create the icons,
and made the first version of the pages work in late 1994.
H.S. Teoh provided a list arranging the
Hartmut Frommert has provided most of the textual information,
parts of the data, many of the index files, many new additional images,
and more common names for the objects, and has added a lot of features
like the image quick-browser
(inspired by Bill Arnett‘s
the photo index,
the hot topic page,
and various extra materials as
the historic pages,
the collection of
similar catalogs and observing lists
and the Messier Marathon stuff.
He is currently maintaining this project (since late 1995), trying to extend
it to comprehensive coverage of all Messier-related stuff suitable for the Web.
Christine Kronberg has entered the project silently in early 1996. In close
cooperation with Hartmut Frommert, she has contributed significantly to make
these pages what they are now. She has reviewed all Messier object pages, and
contributed countless propositions, corrections and bugfixes. Her outstanding
constellation charts, originally created for her
Constellations and Stars pages (now also
are going to replace our older star maps,
and it was her idea to make these pages multi-lingual.
The current layout of these pages is a product of the outstanding cooperation
of Chris and Hartmut. Moreover, Chris has built up our first (partial)
at her Munich Astronomical Archive,
German version of the Messier pages.
Many of these images were obtained from another Messier Catalog server
at convex.ct.astro.it (which is now available in html at
http://www.ct.astro.it/oggmessier1.html).
We also utilized our extensive archive of
deepspace images for alternate images.
The original sky charts were created by the excellent public-domain Windows
astronomy/space/satellite-tracking program
created by John Walker.
Much thanks to Dr. Walker for allowing us to freely use Home Planet to
create these charts.
A Messier image for the homepage icon was generously provided by
they also granted permission to use their
catalog materials on Messier here, thanks !
Special thanks go to David Malin
of the Anglo Australian Observatory
for offering and encouraging the use of his outstanding astronomical color
photographs in these pages,
to Dr. Don Greeley for his contributions to the
M102 discussion and for providing me with a copy of Messier’s original
to Leos Ondra
for the permission to include his articles,
to Paul Scowen for providing
his HST images of and info on the Crab Nebula,
to Tony Cecce for contributing his
Twelve Month Tour of the Messier Catalog,
and to David Nash for his
contribution on the
history of the Messier Catalog.
In addition, the present maintainer wants to express thanks to all who
contributed comments, propositions, error fixes and more:
Besides very particular and cordial thanks to my co-author Chris Kronberg,
these go especially to
Mark Wagner and
Leos Ondra, to name
just some of the most helpful (in no particular order; forgive me that I
cannot write down the whole list). A very particular appreciation also goes to
Chris Lewicki, the admin of this
server, for providing the technological foundations for this service, and
his always helpful cooperation and support.
We also thank all our contributors deeply and
cordially !
Continuing Updates for 1998:
- Adding links to other images
(e.g., HST photos)
- Improving the descriptions, getting further information for the objects
- Adding some more historic stuff
on Messier and Deep Sky discoveries
- Looking for some more
and information on them
- Creating a list of the most well-known non-Messier NGC objects
- Adding constellation deep-sky charts and “star-hop” information
- Correcting any other bugs and errors
Although we have invested a certain amount of research effort, some important
data and informations on the Messier objects are either difficult to obtain, or
not very wellknown at all. We have compiled a
list to request some of the most urgently needed
information; it would be great if you could help to improve our database !
If you have any commments or suggestions, or have anything to add, please e-mail
Last Modification: 24 Jan 1998, 13:10 MET