Messier catalog is one of the first attempts to catalog deep space objects, compiled and published by the French astronomer Charles Messier in the 18th century. Messier was interested in finding only comets and he created a list of non-comet objects that frustrated his hunt for them. Thus this catalog contains various astronomical objects, including the spiral and elliptical galaxies, nebulae, planetary nebulae, open and globular star clusters.Moreover, almost all of the objects in the catalog are among the closest to the Earth representatives of their classes, and therefore they are very well studied. Unlike catalogues that were compiled later like the New General Catalog of astronomical objects (NGC), Messier catalog is not scientifically organized by object type or their location on the sky.The first version of the Messier Catalogue contains 45 sites and was published in 1774 in the journal of the French Academy of Sciences, Paris. Subsequently, the catalog is supplemented periodically, and by the time of its last edition in 1781 already contains 103 objects. On various occasions between 1921 and 1966, astronomers rediscover 7 more deep sky objects that were observed by Messier shortly after the final version was issued. These objects, from M104 to M110, were subsequently adopted by many astronomers as "official" Messier objects. The designations M1 to M110 continue today to be used by professional and amateur astronomers.
M 1 M 2 M 3 M 4
M 5 M 6 M 7 M 8 M 9
M 10 M 11 M 12 M 13 M 14
M 15 M 16 M 17 M 18 M 19
M 20 M 21 M 22 M 23 M 24
M 25 M 26 M 27 M 28 M 29
M 30 M 31 M 32 M 33 M 34
M 35 M 36 M 37 M 38 M 39
M 40 M 41 M 42 M 43 M 44
M 45 M 46 M 47 M 48 M 49
M 50 M 51 M 52 M 53 M 54
M 55 M 56 M 57 M 58 M 59
M 60 M 61 M 62 M 63 M 64
M 65 M 66 M 67 M 68 M 69
M 70 M 71 M 72 M 73 M 74
M 75 M 76 M 77 M 78 M 79
M 80 M 81 M 82 M 83 M 84
M 85 M 86 M 87 M 88 M 89
M 90 M 91 M 92 M 93 M 94
M 95 M96 M 97 M 98 M 99
M 100 M 101  M 102 (?) M 103 M 104
M 105 M 106 M 107 M 108 M 109
       
M 110        

 

 
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