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 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 ...

The Pleiades star cluster, Messier 45, amid the faint and dusty nebulosity that surrounds it. The stars of the Pleiades are passing through the dust clouds in Taurus and are lighting them up as ...

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 ...

Back in the late 18th and early 19th centuries — long before anyone had any real idea of all that lay out there among the stars — a French astronomer spent his nights scouring the sky for his prey.

"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 ...