Charles Messier (26 Juni 1730 – 12 April 1817) adalah astronom Perancis yang terkenal dengan katalognya tentang obyek-obyek langit jauh (Deep sky Object), seperti nebula, gugus bintang, dan galaksi berjumlah 103 yang kemudian dikenal sebagai Obyek Messier. Messier sebenarnya adalah seorang pemburu komet dan katalog tersebut ditujukan untuk membantu membedakan antara obyek-obyek langit difus yang berposisi tetap dan yang berpindah- pindah. Atas jasanya maka obyek2 yg dia katalogkan diberi nama dengan huruf M didepan urutan angkanya. Tetapi saat ini penamaan juga memakai huruf NGC atau singkatan dari Nebula Galaksi Cluster.
Messier dilahirkan di Badonviller di wilayah Lorraine, Perancis, sebagai anak kesepuluh dari dua belas anak Francoise B. Grandblaise dan Nicolas Messier, seorang penegak hukum. Enam saudaranya meninggal ketika masih muda, dan pada 1741 ayahnya meninggal dunia. Ketertarikan Charles pada astronomi karena kemunculan komet spektakuler berekor enam pada 1744 dan peristiwa gerhana matahari cincin yang tampak dari kota kelahirannya pada 25 Juli, 1748.
Pada 1751 ia bekerja Joseph Nicolas Delisle, astronom Angkatan Laut Perancis, yang menginstruksikannya menjaga dengan hati-hati catatan-catatan pengamatannya. Pengamatan pertama Messier yang didokumentasikannya adalah transit Merkurius pada 6 Mei, 1753.
Pada 1764, ia menjadi anggota Royal Society, dan pada 30 Juni 1770, ia dipilih menjadi anggota Akademi Ilmu Pengetahuan Perancis.
Messier menemukan tiga belas komet :
* C/1760 B1 (Messier)
* C/1763 S1 (Messier)
* C/1764 A1 (Messier)
* C/1766 E1 (Messier)
* C/1769 P1 (Messier)
* D/1770 L1 (Lexell)
* C/1771 G1 (Messier)
* C/1773 T1 (Messier)
* C/1780 U2 (Messier)
* C/1788 W1 (Messier)
* C/1793 S2 (Messier)
* C/1798 G1 (Messier)
* C/1785 A1 (Messier-Mechain)
Dan dibawah Ini beberapa foto dari Katalog Messier.
Messier 1 - The Crab Nebula
Like few other celestial objects, the Crab nebula displays the death of a star in all of its beauty. Both colorful and convoluted filaments of gas expand violently away from the origin of the explosion. The cataclysmic end for this star was observed in 1054 AD by any of humanity that cared to look skyward- it could be seen even the day for months! In the heart of the nebula lies the dense collapsed remnant of the star- a pulsar. Weighing in at the mass of the sun- but only six miles across- this ball of condensed matter spins 30 times a second and releases tremendous amounts of energy. At a distance of 7000 light years this explosion went off safely- so that now we can observe this 10 light year cloud of glowing gas Of the two stars in the very center of the nebula, the one on the bottom is the pulsar.
Messier 2 - Globular Cluster in Aquarius
Messier 3 - Globular Star Cluster
Messier 5
Messier 8
Messier 10
Messier 11 -The Wild Duck Cluster
Messier 12
Messier 13 - Globular Star Cluster
Messier 15
The extremely bright and concentrated globular cluster, M15, is home to a unique planetary nebula called Pease 1.
Messier 16 - The Eagle Nebula
Messier 17 - The Swan Nebula
This object also often called the Omega Neblula or rarely the Horseshoe Nebula. This image is deep enough that the "swan-ness" of the nebula is lost in the convoluted turmoil of gas and dust. However if you squint at the screen, you will find that the brightest parts of the nebula make a convincing bird floating on the water with the head (dark area) on the left and the wings extending up and to the right. The body of the Swan is about twelve lightyears long, but that is only the brightest portion. There are fainter, irregular clumps of gas that stretch for forty lightyears or more. The Swan is about 5700 lightyears away towards the constellation of Sagittarius.
Messier 20 - The Trifid Nebula
Messier 27 - The Dumbbell Nebula
H-alpha and O-III data were blended with the original clear-filtered data to form a new luminance channel. This allowed a less aggressive DDP on the clear-filtered data, so the star images are much tighter. The color information is a blend of the straight RGB data and both the H-alpha and O-III data.
M31 The Andromeda Galaxy
Messier 32
Seldom is heard the name " M31" (the Great Andromeda Galaxy) without at least mentioning its closest elliptical companion, M32. This small galaxy is around 8,000 light years across (longest dimension) and contains a few billion stars (not that many). M32 is considered in the foreground of its larger parent galaxy. Note that the background looks mottled in this image. This is due to the millions of unresolved stars in the disk of M31. (you can even see a small HII region towards the right side of the image. Just imagine the view of of M31 from the outskirts of M32- words would certainly fail to describe the view.
Messier 33 - The Triangulum or Pinwheel Galaxy
Messier 35
Messier 39
Messier 42 - The Great Nebula in Orion
Messier 43
M43 is part of the much larger Orion Nebula complex. This section features a an extremely bright OB star that is creating a matter bound Stromgren sphere. This means that the star is ionizing the gas that is near it- making a sphere of glowing (pink) hydrogen gas. The size of this sphere is determined by the density of gas/dust that surrounds the star. Another good example of this process can be found in IC 1274. M43 and the Orion Nebula are around 1,500 light years away. Many new stars will be formed from these clouds of gas.
M46 - Open Cluster
Messier 51 - The Whirlpool Galaxy
Messier 52
Messier 53
M57 - The Ring Nebula
Messier 58
Messier 61
Messier 63
Messier 64
Messier 65
This spiral galaxy is highly inclined to our view and appears to be the least impacted by the interaction with the other members of the Trio in Leo. The group is 30 million light-years distant and includes M66 and NGC3628.
Messier 66
Messier 71
Spiral Galaxy Messier 74
M74 is often cited as a prototypical "grand design" spiral galaxy. Winding out from the central core of older yellow suns, its graceful arms trace the wave of formation of new stars in the disk of the galaxy. The magenta patches are clouds of energized gas where new stars are just being born, similar to our own galaxy's Orion Nebula. Once they dissipate, these clouds leave behind bluish clusters of hot, young stars, also visible in this photograph. Apparently spiral arms such as these are transient phenomena, and do not rotate along with the rest of the material in the galaxy's disk. Rather, they are compression waves traveling through the disk, triggering star formation as they propagate.
Messier 75
Messier 75 is a mag 8.6, rich and condensed globular found on the border between Sagittarius and Capricornus. This is a harder Messier object to resolve than most and a good example of a strongly compressed globular cluster.
Messier 76 - The Little Dumbbell
M76 is a wonderful nebula to observe visually through the 20 inch telescope on a dark night. It displays two distinct features- the bright inner rectangle and very dim outer loops. Like most nebulae of this type, these loops of material (the rectangular part is a torus viewed edgewise) are cast off by the death of star of average mass. Stars more massive would actually explode. This process is much more non-violent and results in the convoluted bubbles shown here. The distance to M76 is uncertain; but most sources place it between 3-5 thousand light years away. This would make the bubble of gas about a light year across. This full resolution image best shows the very heart of the nebula where the central star resides. The image shows a double star- the top of which is distinctly blue. It is this hot star that is responsible for making the Little Dumbbell glow!
Messier 77
M77 is a tremendous galaxy in the constellation of Cetus. It is over 170,000 light years across (the largest Messier galaxy) and over 49 million light years away. In this image you can see the very bright center and if you dim the lights in the room you can just make out the very dim outer arms. M77 is also remarkable because its central region emits copious amounts of energy. It is believed that the only source that could generate this amount of energy is a supermassive blackhole (as if a run-of-the-mill blackhole wasn't enough). In fact, the entire nucleus of this galaxy changes in brightness in a period of less than a week!. An energetic galaxy such as this falls into a special catagory called Seyfert galaxies (named after the discoverer Carl Seyfert). The galaxy is also a very strong radio source (for the reasons above). There have been more astronomical papers written about this galaxy than any others!
M 78
Messier 79
M79 is kind of a pathetic globular cluster- I say this with emotion based on its appearance compared to other Messier Globular clusters. However the winter sky has little to offer in terms of these clusters- M79 is just about it. These clusters orbit the center of the galaxy and the winter sky (towards Orion) is in the opposite direction. There is a good reason that M79 is so dim- it is located approximately 41,000 light years away and is one of the few that exists outside the orbit of the Sun. Due to its southern location and distance it is very difficult to appreciate visually through a telescope. CCD images such as this begin to reveal the true nature and beauty of this sphere of stars.
Messier 80
Messier 80 lies in a beautiful field with contrasting stars, about 4.5° NW of Antares (Alpha Scorpii). Sometimes called "a poor cousin to M 4", it is quite different, being far more condensed and less reddened. It shines at mag 7.2 and extends 8 arc minutes. The field of view is 37 x 25 arcminutes with north towards the lower right.
M81 is one of the brightest galaxies in the northern sky. It can easily be seen in a pair of binoculars under a relatively dark sky. However, it is only with a sensitive detector (like a CCD camera) that the spectacular nature of this Sb spiral galaxy can be appreciated. The nearby starburst galaxy, M82, recently (in galactic terms) interacted with M81 by making a close pass in their mutual orbits. Unlike the seemingly unaffected M81 shown here- M82 is undergoing incredible starforming and energy production throughout the galaxy.
Like most spiral galaxies, the starformation in M81 is taking place in the defined arms of the galaxy. Small pink balls of light show the location of a myriad of HII regions (the emission nebulae of M81). Bluish clumps hint at the uncountable numbers of new stars in the spiral arms.
Messier 82
Messier 83 in Hydra
Messier 87
In the heart of the Virgo cluster of galaxies lies a giant- and in its heart lies a monster. This elliptical galaxy is larger than our galaxy as it is 120,000 light years in diameter. However, since it is spherical in volume astronomers estimate that this ball of stars weighs in at over 2 trillion solar masses (sunlike stars!). In this image many small fuzzy balls surround the galaxy. Each of these is a globular cluster which contains hundreds of thousands of stars. And finally the seemingly innocuous spike eminating from the core of the galaxy is a luminous stream of accelerated gas (almost the speed of light) having been driven from a black hole in the heart of M87. There are many companion galaxies that orbit this overbearing galaxy.
Messier 88
M90 is one of the few large spiral galaxies in the Virgo Cluster. This galaxy seems similar to M64 in that the outer arms are very smooth and devoid of star formation. In fact, there are few bright pink HII regions which might indicate any star birth in this galaxy. At a distance of 60 million light years away it is not alone and appearently disturbing its neighbor (on the left, bottom image) IC 3583. Astronomers have measured the velocity of this galaxy and have found that it is actually moving towards us! M90 has enough velocity to escape from the gravitational bonds of the Virgo Cluster of galaxies.
Messier 92
Messier 94
M94 is an interesting galaxy due to its waves of star formation. Near the nucleus there are chains of pink star forming regions - almost as if some pebble was dropped into this galactic pool of gas. Outside of this inner radius more regular spiral arms present dim dust lanes with smaller regions of activity. Currently there isn't a very good estimate on the distance to this galaxy. Most sources place it between 15 to 20 million light years away. In the zoomed out picture shown here (left) note there is a very dim circular halo of M94's galactic stars. (click on the image to see the full resolution format) This image was processed in such a way to try to show these features as well as the very bright central regions simultaneously. The difference in brightness takes up the full dynamic range of the data.
Messier 95
M95 is a barred spiral galaxy with nearly circular arms surrounding the inner region. It is estimated this galaxy is 38 million lights years away. M95 and M96 are nearly in the same direction in the constellation of Leo and are also neighbors to one another. If you lived in the plane of this galaxy at one end of the bar, you might see your "milky way" look very bright looking along the bar. In our own galaxy, you can see the difference along the plane of the galaxy depending on the direction you look- but the difference is a bit more subtle here. Other barred spiral galaxies in the Messier catalogue include M91, M58 and M109.
Messier 96
Messier 97 - The Owl Nebula
Whoo Whoo says astronomical objects don't look like their names? This glowing gas bubble is estimated to be 6,000 years old and 1,500 light years away. Though subtle, the complex structure of this nebula have proven difficult for astronomers to model on computers.
Messier 98
M98 is one of the many members of the Virgo Cluster of galaxies around 40-50 million light years away. Generally the expansion of the universe provides a good method for measuring galaxies at this distance- however M98 has a large velocity within the Virgo Cluster and instead of redshifted light the galaxy is one of a few blueshifted examples. This means that we observe the net velocity towards us due to the addition of the its recessional velocity and its intrinsic velocity in the cluster. The high inclination of the galaxy severely dims many of the starforming regions in the disk. A face-on view might reveal a galaxy similar to M106. Due to the paucity of guide stars for this object- it was not possible to better center the image.
Messier 99
M99 is one of many spiral galaxies in the Virgo Cluster. Our own galaxy, the Milky Way, resides on the outskirts of this collection of many thousand galaxies. Unlike our own galaxy, M99 is disturbed due to interactions with other massive galaxies nearby (not shown). It almost looks as if the spiral arms are being blown by some celestial wind from below. While this is not true, at a distance of 60 million light years this galaxy proudly displays bright blue and red star formation in the its spiral arms
Messier 100
Messier 101
Messier 103
Messier 104
The Sombrero Galaxy is one of many showpieces of the Virgo Cluster of galaxies. Even at a distance of 40 million light years its beauty and mystery are not diminished. The Sombrero illustrates how incredibly thin the disks of spiral galaxies are. In this case the galaxy is inclined from our perspective by a mere 6 degrees. The extended halo which surrounds the galaxy is where orbiting globular star clusters are found (just like in the Milky Way). Other examples of edge-on spiral galaxies include NGC 891 and NGC 4565.
M106 is an unexpected jewel for spiral galaxies. The brightest portions of the galaxy (center) show tremendous activity of star formation between the darker clouds of gas. One such cloud seems to rise out of the disk like a wall and prevents us from seeing directly into the nucleus. This galaxy is estimated to be around 21 million light years away.
Messier 107
Messier 109
Messier 110 (NGC205)
