When looking for objects to view or image, many amateur astronomers turn to the Messier catalog of 110 objects (established in the 1700s) as their starting point. Those fortunate to spend enough time under the stars to complete the Messier catalog often start sampling objects from the Caldwell catalog of 109 objects, published in 1995. Both lists contain some of the best objects in the sky.

But what if you have completed viewing or imaging those 219 objects? What comes next? Fortunately for us, astronomer Stephen James O'Meara in 2007 published a list of 109 objects called the Hidden Treasures, documented in his excellent book entitled Deep-Sky Companions: Hidden Treasures. None of these objects are included in either the Messier or the Caldwell catalogs, and all are visible in a 4-inch telescope under dark skies. Together, all 3 of these catalogs contain every deep sky object discovered prior to 1782, when Herschel began his deep sky survey.

O'Meara selected these 109 Hidden Treasure objects after culling over many other lists and consulting other experienced astronomers. Many of the objects selected by O'Meara are bright and beautiful, but others are included because of their astronomical uniqueness or their historical significance. The list consists of 38 open star clusters, 35 galaxies, 8 globular star clusters, 8 bright nebulae, 14 planetary nebulae, 4 asterisms, 1 dark nebula and 1 star. At 584 pages, the book contains an average of 5 pages per object, including maps, finder charts, images, illustrations, scientific information and interesting stories. This book is well written and is a great addition for anyone who enjoys viewing the night sky.

The one area of the book that I found a bit lacking were the images. The photos of each object in the book are black and white photos from the Digitized Sky Survey (DSS). While these photos are OK, I don’t feel that they truly capture the beauty and true appearance of these objects. Over the past few years, from my location in Onalaska, Texas at 31 degrees north latitude, I have imaged 104 of these 109 objects. The result is contained on this high resolution poster, which is best seen when viewed in full resolution. Of the 5 objects not included on the poster, 4 objects lie below -59 declination and don’t make it above my horizon, and one of the objects is a star which I did not have a desire to image.

The objects are listed in order of right ascension. The object size range is broad, from 0.2 to 480 arc-minutes. I also have included 2 images here which describe the catalog in tabular form, including location, size, object type, and nickname. For more detailed information on each of these objects, please see my Astrobin Hidden Treasure Collection.

I have also created a sortable spreadsheet that contains key information for all of the over 400 objects from my 4 main Astrobin compilations (Messier, Caldwell, Hidden Treasures and Secret Deep). The spreadsheet data for each object includes designation, nickname, object type, RA & Dec, transit date, and size. If you would like a free copy, please email me at [email protected]

Please let me know if you have any questions or comments.