When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. If you spend any time with astronomers, sooner or later, you'll hear them use the phrase "M" ...

French astronomer Charles Messier's list of the best and brightest deep sky objects is popular with skywatchers of all experience levels. During the new moon period in early spring each year, it's ...

The Crab Nebula, known as Messier object M1, was generated in a supernova blast recorded by Chinese astronomers in 1054. Starting in the mid-1700s, Charles Messier cataloged more than 100 galaxies, ...

The Messier marathon is an activity that’s been popular with astronomy clubs since the 1980s. It’s a test of endurance and skill to view each of the 109 deep-sky objects in French comet-hunter Charles ...

Amateur astronomers had 12 spectacular new images to look to during this year's Messier marathon, a skywatching challenge that happened on the weekend of March 17 and 18. Messier Marathons happen in ...

In 1781, French astronomer Charles Messier published a catalog of 103 objects in the heavens. He was primarily interested in comets, but kept finding fuzzy smudges that did not move against the ...

"Deep Sky Companion" at the Cahill Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics. Credit: Lia Halloran For her latest exhibition, called “Deep Sky Companion,” artist Lia Halloran was inspired not by the ...

If you look to the east at night with a telescope this week, you may see a bright cluster of stars with a powerful name and a discovery story that dates back to the 18th century. The cluster is an ...

Anyone spotting a globular star cluster like M13 for the first time through an amateur telescope will recognize a fascinating white spot, which at first glance could also be a comet without a ...