Starship Asterisk*

Lordcat Darkstar wrote:
Actually if I remember correctly Messier observed from the observatory in Paris. If you consider all of the oil street lamps and the smoke from cooking fires, he probably didn't have all that good of seeing conditions. I vaugly remember reading an article that explained just how bad it was back then but sadly I don't remember which magazine it was in

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_lighti ... s_lighting wrote:
A "thermolampe" using gas distilled from wood was patented in 1799, whilst German inventor Friedrich Winzer (Frederick Albert Winsor) was the first person to patent coal-gas lighting in 1804.
In 1801, Phillipe Lebon of Paris had also used gas lights to illuminate his house and gardens, and was considering how to light all of Paris. In 1820, Paris adopted gas street lighting.

Ann wrote:

Boomer12k wrote:

ta152h0 wrote:How big a telescope did Mr Messier have available to him ?

http://www.astrosurf.com/re/messier1.html

"Charles Messier used over a dozen telescopes during his career but his favorite was a 7.5 inch 104x Gregorian reflector. Later when the apochromatic refractor became available he utilized several 3.5 inch 120x apochromatics. "

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Thanks for that info, Boomer12k. Very interesting. We should probably bear in mind, too, that Mr. Messier enjoyed very dark skies.

M24 is hugely interesting. It is, as was said in the caption of today's APOD, an opening in the permeating dust clouds that allows us a glimpse of what a spiral arm of the Milky Way may look like from a distance. The much better known Baade's Window is an opening in the dust that allows us to see a portion of the bulge of the Milky Way. The color contrast between the silver-blue spiral arm of M24 and the yellow bulge of our galaxy is so interesting.

Ann

Boomer12k wrote:http://www.astrosurf.com/re/messier1.html

"Charles Messier used over a dozen telescopes during his career but his favorite was a 7.5 inch 104x Gregorian reflector. Later when the apochromatic refractor became available he utilized several 3.5 inch 120x apochromatics. "

starsurfer wrote:
From yesterday's clue, I expected to see M11, the Wild Duck Cluster.

Boomer12k wrote:

ta152h0 wrote:How big a telescope did Mr Messier have available to him ?

http://www.astrosurf.com/re/messier1.html

"Charles Messier used over a dozen telescopes during his career but his favorite was a 7.5 inch 104x Gregorian reflector. Later when the apochromatic refractor became available he utilized several 3.5 inch 120x apochromatics. "

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ta152h0 wrote:How big a telescope did Mr Messier have available to him ?