Marvels of the Universe 



545 



Towards the close of the eighteenth century, a pains- 

 taking French astronomer, named Messier, armed with a 

 telescope of onlj- two inches aperture, compiled a list of 

 all the groups of stars and cloudy patches of light, one 

 hundred and three in number, which he could see in the 

 heavens as \-isible in the latitude of France. Though his 

 telescope enabled him to satisfy himself that many of his 

 objects were discrete groups of stars, yet there were others 

 the stellar character of which was wholly undiscoverable 

 by him. Jumping over a period of more than half a 

 centur\', during which Sir W. Herschel resolved a certain 

 number of Messier's patches of light into separate stars, 

 we reach the epoch of 1846, when Lord Rosse, with his 

 giant Reflector, carried a good deal farther than Herschel 

 had done the separation of the so-called Nebulffi of 

 Messier into individual stars. But a point was soon 

 reached when Lord Rosse's instrument, powerful though 

 it was, was powerless to resolve a large number of Nebulae 

 (some of Messier's, many of Herschel's, and many more of 

 Rosse's own) into separate stars ; and thus it came about 

 that the study of Nebulae, so far as knowing what they 

 were was concerned, came to a standstill until the spec- 

 troscope was brought into use, and the discoveries of 

 Bunsen and Kirchoff, about i860, paved the way for the 

 development by Huggins and others of discoveries which 

 revolutionized to a great extent this particular department 

 of sidereal astronomy. 



The object of this article is to invite attention to some 

 of the most famous, perhaps it would be better to say 

 some of the most striking and conspicuous, of the Clusters 

 of stars and Nebulae which are to be found in the heavens. 

 Messier's labours, limited though they were, owing to his 

 ver>' inadequate optical means, have borne great fruit, in 

 so far that the objects which are entered in our catalogues 

 with the letter " M." attached to them, to commemorate 

 the fact that they were first catalogued by him, comprise 

 practically all the Clusters and Nebulae which may now 

 be ranked as of first-class importance, excepting a few 

 which were beyond Messier's ken because they are in 

 parts of the southern hemisphere which are invisible in 

 France. 



The illustrations here given will bring under the notice 

 of the reader a few of the chief of these objects, it being 

 remembered that no distinction was, or could be, drawn 

 by Messier between what we now call " Clusters " and 

 what we now call " Nebulae," he lumping all together 

 under the phraise " Nebulosities and Masses of Stars " 

 {Nebuleuses, amas d'etoiles). 



The most familiar of the Clusters are undoubtedly 



THE -DUMB-BELL- NEBULA 



As seen through an ordinary telescope 



THE ■• DUMB-BELL " NEBULA. 



Through Sir John Herschel's telescope. 



THE '■ DUMB-BELL" NEBULA. 



Resolved into thousands of separate stars by 

 the giant instrument of the Earl of Rosse. 



