#messier 40

[quiltofstars]

Winnecke 4, M40 // Stardust23

The photographer's title is "The Greatest Astronomical Object in the Universe" and their comment is

"The crown jewel(s) of the Messier Catalog. Truly stunning. 1000 out of 10. Really no point in imaging anything else." 😂

[quiltofstars]

Winnecke 4, M40 // Michael Sanford

An oddity in Messier's catalog, M40 is not a deep-sky object like a star cluster, nebula, or galaxy, but is instead an optical pairing of two unrelated stars.

The pair of stars was discovered by Messier in 1764 when he was looking for a nebula reported earlier by Johannes Hevelius (1611-1687). The "nebula" reported by Hevelius might've been the faint galaxy NGC 4290 (seen in this image to the left), which may have been visible in telescopes at the time, but not in the types Messier used.

Nonetheless, Messier included it in his list. Had he had a larger telescope, he might've discovered the galaxy NGC 4290 or the fainter galaxy NGC 4284.

Nowadays, we know these two stars are unrelated to each other. Measurements from the Gaia spacecraft have indicated that one of the stars is 1,000 light years away, while the other is only 470 light years away.

[leisurelyscientist]

The Elusive Messier 40 in Ursa Major

The Elusive Messier 40 in Ursa Major

Charles Messier was searching for a reported nebula in this area and only found the double star later identified as Winnecke 4, why he still added this to his catalog we’ll never know. Burnham referred to this as “one of the few real mistakes in the Messier catalog” (Burnham’s Celestial Handbook, Volume Three, Robert Burnham, Jr.). So, here is my image just to fill the slot in my Messier catalog,…

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