Hubble’s Messier Catalog (original) (raw)
Better known as the Crab Nebula, Charles Messier originally mistook Messier 1 for Halley’s Comet, which inspired him to create…
Hubble's image of Messier 2 is comprised of visible and infrared wavelengths of light.
Messier 3 holds more than 500,000 stars.
Use the bright star, Antares, to help you find Messier 4.
Messier 5’s stars formed more than 12 billion years ago.
This open cluster is the southernmost object in Messier's catalog.
Famously known as the Lagoon Nebula, Messier 8 shines by the ionizing ultraviolet radiation of its embedded young stars.
Messier 9 is the one of the closest globular clusters to the center of our Milky Way galaxy.
Hubble’s image of Messier 10’s dense core holds observations taken in visible and infrared light.
Messier 11 (The Wild Duck Cluster)
This cluster's brightest stars form a rough V-shape that resembles a flock of migrating waterfowl, giving it the common name…
Astronomers suspect Messier 12 lost up to one million low-mass stars.
Messier 13 (The Hercules Cluster)
Astronomer Edmond Halley, of Halley's comet fame, discovered Messier 13 in 1714.
Messier 14 is home to over 150,000 stars.
Messier 15 is host an intermediate-mass black hole at its core.
Better known as the Eagle Nebula, Messier 16 has provided Hubble with some of its most iconic images.
Messier 17 (The Omega Nebula or Swan Nebula)
Messier 17 is better known as the Omega Nebula or Swan Nebula.
Messier 19 is one of several globular clusters found in the constellation Ophiuchus.
Messier 20 (The Trifid Nebula)
Look for Messier 20, better known as the Trifid Nebula, in August.
Messier 22 offered Hubble some interesting discoveries.
Messier 24 (M24) is unusual for being not a specific object but a strikingly clear space between dust clouds through…
Messier 27 (The Dumbbell Nebula)
Through backyard telescopes, Messier 27 has two bright lobes making it look like a dumbbell, and is commonly called the…
This globular cluster holds a dense neutron star that rotates once every three milliseconds.
Hubble observations helped identify two types of "blue stragglers" in Messier 30.
Messier 31 (The Andromeda Galaxy)
Persian astronomer Abd al-rahman al-Sufi’s The Book of Fixed Stars from the year 964 contains the first known report of…
Messier 32 is a satellite galaxy of the Andromeda Galaxy (M31).
Messier 33 (The Triangulum Galaxy)
At half the size of our Milky Way, Messier 33 is the third-largest galaxy in our local group of galaxies.
The only Messier object in the constellation Gemini, Messier 35 (M35), also called NGC 2168 or the Shoe Buckle Cluster,…
You can spot Messier 42, better known as the Orion Nebula, with the unaided eye from a dark sky site.
Messier 43 is a neighbor to Messier 42, the Orion Nebula.
Messier 44, also famously known as the Beehive Cluster or Praesepe, swarms with activity as its name would suggest. This…
This bright open cluster of stars, more commonly called the Pleiades or Seven Sisters, is easy to see with the…
Most of the stars in this image are part of the open star cluster, Messier 46. The colorful planetary nebula…
Messier 48 (M48), also known as NGC 2548, is located near the head of the constellation Hydra, the Sea Serpent,…
Messier 49 holds nearly 6,000 globular clusters.
Messier 51 (The Whirlpool Galaxy)
Also known as the Whirlpool Galaxy, Messier 51's spiral arms are star-forming factories.
Messier 53 is one of the Milky Way's most distant globular clusters from Earth.
Messier 54 belongs to a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way.
This globular cluster holds 100,000 stars including 55 variable stars.
This Hubble image of Messier 56 includes both visible and infrared observations.
Messier 57, better known as the Ring Nebula, is the glowing remains of a sun-like star.
Discovered in 1779 by Charles Messier, M58 was one of the first galaxies recognized to have a spiral shape and…
This giant elliptical galaxy holds approximately 2,200 globular clusters.
Hubble captured the elliptical galaxy, Messier 60, and a smaller spiral galaxy, NGC 4647.
This galaxy is undergoing a period of intense star formation.
This globular cluster has an extremely dense core of 150,000 stars.
Messier 63 (The Sunflower Galaxy)
This flocculent galaxy is a type of spiral without well defined spiral arms.
Messier 64 (The Black Eye Galaxy)
This dusty galaxy is also known as the Black Eye galaxy.
Messier 65 is a member of the Leo Triplet of galaxies.
This spiral has asymmetric arms and a core that appears to be off center.
This open cluster contains an unusually old population of stars.
Hubble captured this globular cluster's core at visible and infrared wavelengths of light.
This globular cluster is one of the most metal-rich ever observed.
Messier 70 has more stars at its core than the average globular cluster.
This globular cluster is one of the smallest of its kind.
This is one of the most remote clusters in Messier’s catalog.
Hubble captured this face-on spiral galaxy at visible and infrared wavelengths.
This globular cluster holds roughly 400,000 stars.
This planetary nebula is also known as the Cork Nebula, Barbell Nebula, or Little Dumbbell Nebula.
This majestic spiral galaxy has an intensely active core.
Hubble's infrared image of Messier 78 helped astronomers understand how young stars develop.
Our Milky Way galaxy may have stripped this globular cluster from another galaxy.
Hubble’s ultraviolet observations of this globular cluster helped astronomers identify the remains of a nova-producing white dwarf.
This stately spiral galaxy holds a black hole at its heart that is 70 million times the mass of the…
This galaxy's center is forming stars 10 times faster than our entire Milky Way.
Messier 83 (The Southern Pinwheel)
This spiral galaxy is forming new stars in clusters on the edges of its dark, spiraling dust lanes.
This elliptical is one of the many galaxies that make up the Virgo Cluster.
This galaxy may be an elliptical galaxy or a lenticular galaxy.
Messier 86 is either a lenticular or elliptical galaxy that holds roughly 3,800 globular clusters.
This enormous elliptical galaxy is home of several trillion stars some 15,000 globular star clusters.
This galaxy's core holds supermassive black hole roughly 100 million times more massive than our Sun.
This elliptical galaxy holds approximately 100 billion stars and well over 2,000 globular clusters.
This beautiful spiral is expected to evolve into a lenticular galaxy.
Messier 91 is one of the faintest objects in Messier’s catalog.
This globular cluster is one of the brightest in the Milky Way.
This colorful spiral has two recently discovered faint arms outside of its core region that extend far out into space.
Messier 95 is visible as a hazy smudge on a clear, dark night using a good pair of binoculars.
This spiral galaxy is asymmetrical because of the gravitational pull of its neighboring galaxies.
This spiral galaxy holds about a trillion stars and an abundance of neutral hydrogen gas and interstellar dust.
Hubble images provide detailed views of one of this grand spiral's arms.
This grand-design spiral galaxy offers a majestic view through larger backyard telescopes.
Messier 101 (The Pinwheel Galaxy)
Messier 101 is a classic, face-on, pinwheel spiral galaxy.
Messier 102 (The Spindle Galaxy)
Hubble's was able to resolve details in the dust lanes of Messier 102.
Messier 104 (The Sombrero Galaxy)
Hubble easily resolves some of the Sombrero galaxy’s roughly 2,000 globular clusters.
Messier 105 is the largest elliptical galaxy in the Messier catalog.
Messier 106 was discovered by Charles Messier’s observing assistant, Pierre Méchain, in 1781.
The best time to spot Messier 107 through a small telescope or binoculars is in July.
Messier 108 is one of the largest and brightest members of the Ursa Major galaxy cluster, which is part of…
This barred spiral is the brightest member of the Ursa Major Galaxy Group of roughly 80 galaxies.
Messier 110 is a satellite galaxy of the Andromeda Galaxy (M31).