Back in February I noted that most of the remaining Messier Objects were too low to be seen from my back garden. Well I managed to fit an observing session in during one of our Society meetings to observe the Perseid meteors this August. As it turned out it was cloudy most of the time, so very few meteors were seen, but during the early part of the night, before the Moon rose, I stuck my 10×50 binoculars on their monopod and pointed them low to the South in the direction of Sagittarius.

You may remember way back in 2014 I wrote about Charles Messier and his list of comet-like objects. I also mentioned that I’d started tracking them down with binoculars, and that was a while ago, so what’s happened since? I’m still working to my usual leisurely pace, but I’ve collected good observations of 60 of them now. This year would be a great time to finish this project since it’s the 200th anniversary of Charles’ death.

Charles Messier Charles Messier was born in 1730, in France, and grew up to be a comet obsessed astronomer working in Paris. To be fair to Messier, most 18th century astronomers were obsessed with comets since discovery could bring fame and riches. Whilst hunting for these bringers of wealth, Messier kept finding himself confounded by other objects that appear non-stellar, but lacked one of a comet’s defining features: they weren’t moving.

I’m chasing Messier objects with binoculars at the moment. To be honest most aren’t all that impressive, but whilst searching out these objects in Ophiuchus I encountered something fabulous. I found a huge cluster of bright stars with an obvious profusion of faint stars forming the background field. It immediately struck me that after a lean time on Messiers this object was what binoculars were made for. But I wasn’t done!