M40 - Winnecke 4 (Massimo Di Fusco)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Ursa Major (UMa) · Contains: 70 UMa · HD107949 · M 40 · NGC 4284 · NGC 4290 · NGC 4335 · NGC 4358 · NGC 4362 · NGC 4364 · The star 70 UMa

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M40 - Winnecke 4

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M40 - Winnecke 4

Messier 40 (M40), also known as Winnecke 4 (WNC 4), is an apparent double star consisting of two unrelated stars located in the constellation Ursa Major, the Great Bear. M40 lies at a distance of 510 light years from Earth. It is one of the three Messier objects that are not deep sky objects, but were catalogued by mistake. The other two are M24, the Sagittarius Star Cloud, which is a Milky Way star cloud, and M73, an asterism formed by four stars, located in the constellation Aquarius.
Winnecke 4 was discovered by Charles Messier on October 24, 1764. Messier was looking for a nebula reported in the area by the Polish astronomer Johannes Hevelius in the 17th century, but did not find one, so he catalogued the double star instead. The “nebula” reported by Hevelius may have been the 12th magnitude barred spiral/early type ring galaxy NGC 4290 (above M40 in my picture), which may have been visible in large telescopes at the time, but not in those Messier used. The pair were rediscovered by Friedrich August Theodor Winnecke in 1863, and included in the Winnecke Catalogue of Double Stars as number 4.
Messier was aware that the object he catalogued was a double star and not a nebula, but included it on his list nonetheless.

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Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	6648204
PixInsight job	44DM3XD4VGYSFQTKZNBXK3FT2Z55HYH8
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	TASK_LOG

RA (center)	12h22m14s.87
RA (top/left)	12h17m40s.64
RA (top/right)	12h21m27s.28
RA (bottom/right)	12h26m45s.71
RA (bottom/left)	12h23m04s.26

Dec (center)	+58°05′24″.4
Dec (top/left)	+58°19′50″.8
Dec (top/right)	+57°26′57″.1
Dec (bottom/right)	+57°50′17″.2
Dec (bottom/left)	+58°43′42″.1

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M40 - Winnecke 4

M40 - Winnecke 4

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M40 - Winnecke 4

M40 - Winnecke 4

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