Historical Deep Sky Object List

Hartmut Frommert

<[email protected]> and

Christine Kronberg

<[email protected]>

with contributions by

Glen Cozens,

Guy McArthur and

Bill Arnett

This list summarizes all deep sky objects which are known or seriously assumed

to have been discovered before

William Herschel began his great Deep Sky survey in September, 1782.

We give the identification by name or catalog number, basic astronomical data,

discovery data, and possible common names for each object. As these objects have

all been detected with moderate equipment, they are all within the range of even

modest modern amateur telescopes.

This project was partly inspired by a fruitful discussion with Glen Cozens.

Data are partly based on the original Messier data, collected by Guy McArthur

and updated by the authors with the help of Bill Arnett.

The Historical Deep Sky Object List is available in various formats:

ordered by Right Ascension, 1 line,
2 lines and

3 lines per object
ordered by Declination, 1 line,
2 lines and

3 lines per object
ordered by Constellation, 1 line,
2 lines and

3 lines per object
ordered by Catalog Number or Name, 1 line,
2 lines and

3 lines per object
ordered.by Discovery Date, 1 line,
2 lines and

3 lines per object

See below for a short object list.

The Historical Deep Sky Object List summarizes a total of 152 object entries,

all of which were probably discovered

early.

By obvious reasons (especially publishing date), the list contains all 110

Messier objects, although one could dispute is the “dubious objects”

M24, M40,

and M73 should be included.

The additional 42 entries were mostly discovered earlier, and most of them

(32) are open star clusters; there are no planetary nebulae, supernova

remnants, elliptical and lenticular galaxies among them, and the only spiral

galaxy in this list is our own, the Milky Way.

There are no “other” objects between the additional ones, also for obvious

reasons.

The following table summarizes the numbers of objects for each type, we give

separate numbers for the additional, the Messier, and all objects:


Type                  Additional     Messier       Total



Supernova Remnants         0            1            1

Planetary Nebulae          0            4            4

Diffuse Nebulae            2            6 [+1]       8 [+1]



Nebulae                    2           11           13



Open Clusters             32           27           59

Globular Clusters          4           29           33



Clusters                  36           56           92



Spiral Galaxies            1           27           28

Lenticular Galaxies        0            4            4

Elliptical Galaxies        0            8            8

Irregular Galaxies         3            1            4



Galaxies                   4           40           44



Other                      0            3            3



Total                     42          110          152

Note: The “+1” diffuse nebula refers to the Eagle Nebula associated with

open cluster M16.

Short object list

Below we give a short list of all 152 Historical Deepsky Objects, ordered by

catalog number and name:




M  1              M 52               M103

M  2              M 53               M104

M  3              M 54               M105

M  4              M 55               M106

M  5              M 56               M107

M  6              M 57               M108

M  7              M 58               M109

M  8              M 59               M110

M  9              M 60               47 Tuc (NGC 104)

M 10              M 61               SMC (NGC 292)

M 11              M 62               NGC 752

M 12              M 63               h Per (NGC 869)

M 13              M 64               Chi Per (NGC 884)

M 14              M 65               NGC 2070

M 15              M 66               NGC 2244

M 16              M 67               NGC 2362

M 17              M 68               NGC 2451

M 18              M 69               NGC 2477

M 19              M 70               NGC 2516

M 20              M 71               NGC 2546

M 21              M 72               NGC 2547

M 22              M 73               NGC 3228

M 23              M 74               NGC 3293

M 24              M 75               NGC 3372

M 25              M 76               NGC 3532

M 26              M 77               NGC 3766

M 27              M 78               Kappa Cru (NGC 4755)

M 28              M 79               NGC 4833

M 29              M 80               Omega Cen (NGC 5139)

M 30              M 81               NGC 5195

M 31              M 82               NGC 5281

M 32              M 83               NGC 5662

M 33              M 84               NGC 6025

M 34              M 85               NGC 6124

M 35              M 86               NGC 6231

M 36              M 87               NGC 6242

M 37              M 88               NGC 6397

M 38              M 89               NGC 6530

M 39              M 90               NGC 6633

M 40              M 91               o Vel (IC 2391)

M 41              M 92               IC 2488

M 42              M 93               IC 2602

M 43              M 94               IC 4665

M 44              M 95               Cr  399

M 45              M 96               Mel  20

M 46              M 97               Mel  25

M 47              M 98               Mel 111

M 48              M 99               LMC

M 49              M100               Milky Way

M 50              M101               UMa Cl

M 51              M102? (NGC 5866)

Links

Last Modification: 27 Jun 1998, 13:00 MET