There are comets, and then there are big comets. There was definitely a fire in the sky in 1743 and 1744 one of the last.
As it passed Earth toward the sun, the comet was said to be bright enough that it could be seen during the day and outperformed Venus in the evening sky. It also developed a long and clearly visible double tail, which is already unusual. Then, as it reaches perihelion and orbits the Sun, the comet’s tail splits into six clearly defined rays. In the morning, when the comet’s head was still hidden below the horizon, these six tails were bright and visible, a kind of “fan” from the sun reaching into the sky.
Why the comet gave this appearance remains a mystery. There might actually only be one or two broad tails, but there were areas that were darkened by the thick dust. In any case, it was recorded by astronomers all over the world, including in China, where court astronomers claimed that the comet did indeed make an explosive noise. This is a very unusual comet.
Young Catherine the Great noticed the comet while on her way to Russia for marriage. She considered it heralds of her future greatness, because…of course she did.
Back in France, a young Messier appears to have seen the comet, and seems to have gone a long way toward nudging him toward a future in astronomy rather than getting people into the courtroom. Messier managed to get a job as an assistant to Joseph Nicholas Delayle, who was the official astronomer of the French Navy (drawing a course, etc.), and most importantly, he was a dirty rich man.
Delile had a newly built observatory, and young Messier quickly settled in. Over the next decade, he made many notable discoveries, securing a high position in government, and a series of dignitaries and members of the scientific community. As expected, comets were of particular interest to Messier, and he seemed to excel in winking at a distant comet before other astronomers got their names on the approaching snowballs. King Louis XV called Messier “The Mongoose Comets “If you’re going to carve a title on your tombstone, it should be.
But Messier is best remembered today for his subsequent work with deep sky objects. Beginning in 1771, Messier began compiling a catalog of some of the more mysterious spots in the night sky—what we know today as nebulae, galaxies, and star clusters. The first list contained 45 such items. The final list totaled 110, including Messier’s footnotes and a few things taken from the margins. miserable beings.
Since then, finding these Messier objects has been the preserve of astronomers. Like climbing seven peaks in some mountain climbing. Except the chance of dying in an avalanche is much lower.
And… well, the star cluster Messier 13 Hercules is variously known as the Great Globular Cluster of Hercules or Hercules Globular Cluster. Messier wasn’t the first to discover M13. That honor goes to Edmund Halley, the other guilty boy he saw in 1714. But Messier put it on the table,
M13 is a group of hundreds of thousands of stars, but it is not a galaxy. In fact, it’s one of many such bubbles circling the ancient Milky Way. It is 22,500 light years from Earth. If you want to find it, look for where the name suggests – in the constellation Hercules. But bring a pair of binoculars. Despite the number of stars in this group, its power is greater than 11, which makes it too faint to be seen with the naked eye.
M13 is 100 times more densely packed with stars than the region around Earth. There are only about 135 stars within 50 light years of Earth. On a clear night, it is interesting to imagine what the two-arranged sky looks like for the closest neighbours. The stars in M13 are closer together, and then the pair merges into a short-lived blue-white giant.
Something about the M13 has made the Hercules Globular Cluster a recurring subject of science fiction novels. That’s why when SETI personnel were searching for a target for an experimental message in 1974 on the forgotten Arecibo telescope, they chose M13. Somewhere in between is a message that covers basic information about mathematics, then the structure of atoms, then elements, then DNA, and then expands to describe some basic facts about human life.
If someone is outside and has a good receiver, they will get mail in 22,450 years.
As with most of the photos I show in this feature, the top photo was taken with the small but adorable Vespera binoculars. And as always with this feature, I expect some of you will do better. But it doesn’t get any better than this…
Web countdown: “NASA, along with the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency, will release the first full-color images and spectroscopy data from the James Webb Space Telescope on Tuesday, July 12 during the telecast starting at 10:30 a.m. ET.” We will post it live.