Celestial hemisphere:  Southern  ·  Constellation: Puppis (Pup)  ·  Contains:  M 47  ·  NGC 2422
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M47  the lost Messier object, David Redwine
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M47 the lost Messier object

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
M47  the lost Messier object, David Redwine
Powered byPixInsight

M47 the lost Messier object

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Description

M47, the lost Messier object

On a cold night in February 1771 Charles Messier was looking at a region of naked-eye nebulosity previously discovered by Giovanni Battista Hodierna in 1654. He read the numbers from his setting circles and wrote them down, wrong. For almost 200 years it was assumed to have been a random error, or perhaps an actual comet, but then, in 1959, Canadian astronomer T. F. Morris noticed that if you simply changed the signs on the coordinates you arrived at the small cluster discovered by Hodierna.

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