Charles Messier- source Wikipedia
Charles Messier was born in 1730. Messier was a comet hunter which led him to continually come across fixed fuzzy objects in the night sky which could be mistaken for comets. He made a list of them so that he and other comet hunters would not be misled by the objects.
Today the list of 112 objects, known as M objects, is well known and often used by amateur astronomers like me. Messier did his observing with a 100 mm (four-inch—similar in size to mine) refracting telescope (also like mine) from downtown Paris (not like me). This was before electric lights so he and I had/have the similar advantage of an unpolluted dark sky. Since Messier was in the northern hemisphere, all the objects are in the northern hemisphere (like me).
In my quest to keep things simple, I plan to take simple pictures of M objects as they are up by season.
Mark, this caught my interest immediately because I’m currently teaching an interdisciplinary course on the American/European Enlightenment. We’re headed to a section on science. I had never heard of Messier, but it will be fun to bring him into the conversation.
That is great, Scott. Let me know how it goes.