Charles Messier
Overview
 
Charles Messier was a French astronomer
Astronomy
Astronomy is a natural science that deals with the study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the atmosphere of Earth...

 most notable for publishing an astronomical catalog
Astronomical catalog
An astronomical catalog or catalogue is a list or tabulation of astronomical objects, typically grouped together because they share a common type, morphology, origin, means of detection, or method of discovery...

ue consisting of deep sky objects such as nebula
Nebula
A nebula is an interstellar cloud of dust, hydrogen gas, helium gas and other ionized gases...

e and star cluster
Star cluster
Star clusters or star clouds are groups of stars. Two types of star clusters can be distinguished: globular clusters are tight groups of hundreds of thousands of very old stars which are gravitationally bound, while open clusters, more loosely clustered groups of stars, generally contain less than...

s that came to be known as the 110 "Messier object
Messier object
The Messier objects are a set of astronomical objects first listed by French astronomer Charles Messier in 1771. The original motivation of the catalogue was that Messier was a comet hunter, and was frustrated by objects which resembled but were not comets...

s". The purpose of the catalogue was to help astronomical observers, in particular comet
Comet
A comet is an icy small Solar System body that, when close enough to the Sun, displays a visible coma and sometimes also a tail. These phenomena are both due to the effects of solar radiation and the solar wind upon the nucleus of the comet...

 hunters such as himself, distinguish between permanent and transient objects in the sky.

Messier was born in Badonviller
Badonviller
Badonviller is a commune in the Meurthe-et-Moselle department in north-eastern France.It has a population of 1,512.-See also:*Communes of the Meurthe-et-Moselle department*Badonviller March*Badenweiler, Germany....

 in the Lorraine
Lorraine (région)
Lorraine is one of the 27 régions of France. The administrative region has two cities of equal importance, Metz and Nancy. Metz is considered to be the official capital since that is where the regional parliament is situated...

 region of France, being the tenth of twelve children of Françoise B.
 
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