Back in the 18th century, famed French astronomer Charles Messier noted the presence of several “nebulous objects” in the night sky. Having originally mistaken them for comets, he began compiling a list of these objects so that other astronomers wouldn’t make the same mistake. Consisting of 100 objects, the Messier Catalog has come to be viewed as a major milestone in the study of Deep Space Objects.
One of these objects is Messier 25, an open star cluster located in the direction of the Sagittarius Constellation. At a distance of about 2000 light years from Earth, it is one of the few Messier Objects that is visible to the naked eye (on a clear night when light conditions are favorable).
Description:
This galactic star cluster was originally discovered by Philippe Loys de Cheseaux in 1745 and included in Charles Messier’s catalog in 1764. Oddly enough, it was one of those curious objects that didn’t get cataloged by Sir John Herschel – therefore it never received a New General Catalog (NGC) number.
This is odd, considering that it was part of the 1777 catalog of Johann Elert Bode, observed by William Herschel in 1783, written about by Admiral Smyth in 1836 and even commented on by the Reverend Thomas William Webb in 1859! It was until J.L.E. Dreyer in 1908 that poor little M25 ended up getting added to the second Index Catalog.
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