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The CCD Camera Cookbook

Cookbook CB245 CCD Images Messier Index

Best CCD Images

Messier M2

M1
M2
M3
M4
M5
M6
M7
M8
M9
M10
M11

M12
M13
M14
M15
M16
M17
M18
M19
M20
M21
M22

M23
M24
M25
M26
M27
M28
M29
M30
M31
M32
M33

M34
M35
M36
M37
M38
M39
M40
M41
M42
M43
M44

M45
M46
M47
M48
M49
M50
M51
M52
M53
M54
M55

M56
M57
M58
M59
M60
M61
M62
M63
M64
M65
M66

M67
M68
M69
M70
M71
M72
M73
M74
M75
M76
M77

M78
M79
M80
M81
M82
M83
M84
M85
M86
M87
M88

M89
M90
M91
M92
M93
M94
M95
M96
M97
M98
M99

M100
M101
M102
M103
M104
M105
M106
M107
M108
M109
M110


French astromoner Charles Messier (1730-1817) created a catalog of of nebulae and star clusters so that these objects would not be confused for comets which was his observing focus. Messier claimed to have discoved 21 comets. The Messier catalog contains objects observed by Messier and his fellow astronomer Pierre Mechain (1744-1805). The largest telescope used by Messier was 3.5 inch refractor.

The Messier catalog lists 110 deep sky objects cataloged by M numbers: M1 through M110. Messier objects are an excellent observing list for those intersted in observing deep sky objects and whoes observing location is in the mid-northern latitudes.

All of the above Messier images were taken by David Haworth with a small 80-mm refractor telescope and a home built CCD camera. The image scale is the same for all the images and these images provide a good way to compare the size of the Messier deep sky objects with each other. All the images are the same field of view except M31 is three images combined because it is very large and M37 is croped because of bright star blooming. Some of the images like Ring Nebula M57 image is very small when compared with the large galaxy image of M33. For most of the images the image size or field of view is about 55 arc minutes high by 40 arc minutes wide with north positioned at the top of the Web page. For comparison the moon is about 30 arc minutes in diameter. Therefore, the images are a little less that two moon diameters high and a little more than one moon diameter wide.

Use the monitor test patterns to calibrate monitor brightness, contrast, height and width. There is a big difference in image quality with 256 color (very poor quality), high color (alot better) and true color (best quality) displays.


Other Messier galleries, images or catalogs