Messier ivo://nasa.heasarc/messier NASA/GSFC HEASARC Messier; Hirshfeld, Sinnott; HEASARC 2026-04-03 NASA/GSFC HEASARC help desk heasarc-vo at athena.gsfc.nasa.gov Galaxy Nebula Star Cluster The Messier Catalog of bright, extended objects was compiled by the comet-hunter Charles Messier in the 18th century. It comprised a list of 110 objects which are mostly brighter than 10th magnitude and have angular sizes from 1 to 100 arcminutes. M 102 is now generally considered to be spurious, and the object so named was actually M 101. Hence this electronic version of the Messier Catalog contains only 109 objects. The objects in the Messier Catalog are predominantly star clusters in our Milky Way galaxy, with 29 of them being globular clusters, 27 open clusters; the rest are spiral galaxies (27), elliptical galaxies (11), diffuse and planetary nebulae (10), and miscellaneous objects (5). All of the objects in the Messier Catalog are north of -35 degrees declination. This is a service provided by NASA HEASARC . 1985skca.book.....H https://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/W3Browse/all/messier.html Catalog Research served-by HEASARC TAP https://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/xamin/vo/cone?showoffsets&table=messier& GET text/xml 180 99999 true 268.474796397144 -34.8166649071761 1 https://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/xamin/vo/tap https://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/W3Browse/getvotable.pl?name=messier GET text/xml https://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/W3Browse/w3query.pl?tablehead=name=heasarc_messier&Action=More+Options&Action=Parameter+Search&ConeAdd=1 GENERAL CATALOG 1 Optical public messier Messier Nebulae lii Galactic Longitude degree pos.galactic.lon double nullable object_type Object Category src.class char nullable ra Right Ascension degree pos.eq.ra;meta.main double nullable dec Declination degree pos.eq.dec;meta.main double nullable alt_name Alternate designation meta.id char nullable vmag_uncert Magnitude Uncertainty stat.error;phot.mag;em.opt.V char nullable "__row" System index column char nullable class Browse Object Classification src.class short nullable notes Notes meta.note char nullable "__z_ra_dec" System unit vector column double nullable bii Galactic Latitude degree pos.galactic.lat double nullable "__y_ra_dec" System unit vector column double nullable dimension Dimensions of the Source arcmin phys.angSize char nullable constell Constellation of Origin meta.code;pos char nullable "__x_ra_dec" System unit vector column double nullable vmag Visual Magnitude phot.mag;em.opt.V float nullable name Source designation meta.id;meta.main char nullable