Someone asked me if I was putting the names myself to the objects that I had published.
Well the short answer is NO, I do not have such imagination…
But in order to give you some context, human beings tempt to catalogue and classify everything that comes across.
The first astronomical catalogue was Azophi's Book of Fixed Star, published in the year 964, describes more than a thousand stars in detail and provides the first descriptions of the Andromeda Galaxy and the Large Magellanic Cloud.
Johann Bayer's Uranometria star atlas was published in 1603 with over 1200 stars. Names are made of Greek letters combined with constellation name, for example Alpha Centauri.
John Flamsteed's Historia coelestis Britannica star atlas, published in 1725, lists stars using numbers combined with constellation and ordered by right ascension, for example 61 Cygni.
Messier Catalog- The Messier objects are a set of astronomical objects first listed by French astronomer Charles Messier in 1771. Nebulae and Star Clusters was published in 1781, with objects M1 - M110.
New General Catalogue compiled in the 1880s by J.L.E. Dreyer, lists objects NGC 0001 - NGC 7840. The NGC is one of the largest comprehensive catalogues, as it includes all types of deep space objects and is not confined to, for example, galaxies.
As technology was evolving and humans got access to more and more and more celestial objects, dozens of catalogues followed, each time more specialized and more specific.
In my website I will be naming the objects as per those catalogues and also adding the 'common' names when they have one.
Most of the images will include objects from the following catalogues:
- M: Messier catalogue
- C: Caldwell catalogue
- NGC: New General Catalogue
- IC: Index Catalogue
- Abell: Galaxies clusters catalogue
- PGC: Principal Galaxies Catalogue
- Melotte: Open clusters
Well the short answer is NO, I do not have such imagination…
But in order to give you some context, human beings tempt to catalogue and classify everything that comes across.
The first astronomical catalogue was Azophi's Book of Fixed Star, published in the year 964, describes more than a thousand stars in detail and provides the first descriptions of the Andromeda Galaxy and the Large Magellanic Cloud.
Johann Bayer's Uranometria star atlas was published in 1603 with over 1200 stars. Names are made of Greek letters combined with constellation name, for example Alpha Centauri.
John Flamsteed's Historia coelestis Britannica star atlas, published in 1725, lists stars using numbers combined with constellation and ordered by right ascension, for example 61 Cygni.
Messier Catalog- The Messier objects are a set of astronomical objects first listed by French astronomer Charles Messier in 1771. Nebulae and Star Clusters was published in 1781, with objects M1 - M110.
New General Catalogue compiled in the 1880s by J.L.E. Dreyer, lists objects NGC 0001 - NGC 7840. The NGC is one of the largest comprehensive catalogues, as it includes all types of deep space objects and is not confined to, for example, galaxies.
As technology was evolving and humans got access to more and more and more celestial objects, dozens of catalogues followed, each time more specialized and more specific.
In my website I will be naming the objects as per those catalogues and also adding the 'common' names when they have one.
Most of the images will include objects from the following catalogues:
- M: Messier catalogue
- C: Caldwell catalogue
- NGC: New General Catalogue
- IC: Index Catalogue
- Abell: Galaxies clusters catalogue
- PGC: Principal Galaxies Catalogue
- Melotte: Open clusters