Charles Messier

Charles Messier (1730–1817) was a French astronomer best known today for compiling the Messier Catalog — a list of fuzzy, comet-like objects in the night sky. Ironically, Messier wasn’t searching for nebulae or galaxies at all.

He was a comet hunter.

The Problem Messier Was Solving

While searching for comets, Messier repeatedly encountered faint objects that looked like comets at first glance but never moved. These objects became distractions, slowing down his work and causing confusion.

To avoid mistaking these objects for comets again, Messier began compiling a list of them — along with their positions — so he could quickly rule them out in the future.

That list eventually became known as the Messier Catalog.

The Messier Catalog

The Messier Catalog contains 110 objects, labeled M1 through M110. These include:

Many of these objects are among the brightest and most impressive deep-sky targets visible from Earth, especially with amateur telescopes and binoculars.

Famous Messier objects include:

Why Amateur Astronomers Start with Messier Objects

Today, the Messier Catalog is often the first deep-sky observing list that amateur astronomers work through. There are several reasons for this:

Observing Messier objects teaches beginners how to move around the sky, recognize patterns, and understand what different types of objects look like through a telescope.

The Messier Marathon

One popular tradition among amateur astronomers inspired by Charles Messier’s catalog is the Messier Marathon. A Messier Marathon is an observing challenge where astronomers attempt to observe all 110 Messier objects in a single night, from dusk to dawn. While completing the entire list is difficult and highly dependent on location, weather, and timing, the goal isn’t competition — it’s exploration.

Messier Marathons are typically attempted in late winter or early spring, when the geometry of Earth’s orbit allows most of the catalog to be visible over the course of one long night. Observers begin just after sunset with faint galaxies setting in the west and finish near sunrise with globular clusters and nebulae rising in the east. Along the way, participants encounter galaxies, star clusters, and nebulae that span thousands to millions of light-years in distance.

For many, the Messier Marathon is a rite of passage in amateur astronomy. Whether you observe five objects or fifty, the experience builds familiarity with the night sky, improves star-hopping skills, and reinforces an important lesson: astronomy isn’t about checking boxes — it’s about slowing down, looking up, and connecting with the universe. Every Messier object represents a photon that began its journey long before humans ever built telescopes, finally arriving at your eye after traveling through space for millennia or more.

Messier and Public Outreach

Many of the objects we show during public outreach events come directly from the Messier Catalog. These objects offer a perfect balance of brightness, beauty, and scientific interest.

For someone looking through a telescope for the first time, seeing the Orion Nebula or a globular cluster like M13 can be a powerful moment — a reminder that the universe is vast, real, and accessible.

Although Charles Messier never intended his catalog to inspire generations of amateur astronomers, his work has become one of the most enduring foundations of visual astronomy.

More than two centuries later, we’re still using his list — not to avoid objects, but to share them.