Charles Messier, French astronomer and academic (died 1817)

Charles Messier

18th- and 19th-century French astronomer

Charles Messier was a French astronomer. He published an astronomical catalogue consisting of 110 nebulae and star clusters, which came to be known as the Messier objects, referred to with the letter M and their number between 1 and 110. Messier's purpose for the catalogue was…