Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Foreword
- Preface
- User Guide
- Charles Messier
- The Observations
- The Catalog
- Statistics of the Messier objects
- Visual observation of the Messier objects
- Photography of the Messier objects
- The 110 Messier objects
- M 1
- M 2
- M 3
- M 4
- M 5
- M 6
- M 7
- M 8
- M 9
- M 10
- M 11
- M 12
- M 13
- M 14
- M 15
- M 16
- M 17
- M 18
- M 19
- M 20
- M 21
- M 22
- M 23
- M 24
- M 25
- M 26
- M 27
- M 28
- M 29
- M 30
- M 31
- M 32
- M 33
- M 34
- M 35
- M 36
- M 37
- M 38
- 39
- M 40
- M 41
- M 42
- M 43
- M 44
- M 45
- M 46
- M 47
- M 48
- M 49
- M 50
- M 51
- M 52
- M 53
- M 54
- M 55
- M 56
- M 57
- M 58
- M 59
- M 60
- M 61
- M 62
- M 63
- M 64
- M 65
- M 66
- M 67
- M 68
- M 69
- M 70
- M 71
- M 72
- M 73
- M 74
- M 75
- M 76
- M 77
- M 78
- M 79
- M 80
- M 81
- M 82
- M 83
- M 84
- M 85
- M 86
- M 87
- M 88
- M 89
- M 90
- M 91
- M 92
- M 93
- M 94
- M 95
- M 96
- M 97
- M 98
- M 99
- M 100
- M 101
- M 102
- M 103
- M 104
- M 105
- M 106
- M 107
- M 108
- M 109
- M 110
- Glossary of technical terms
- Index of figures
- Index of sources
M 42
from The 110 Messier objects
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2015
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Foreword
- Preface
- User Guide
- Charles Messier
- The Observations
- The Catalog
- Statistics of the Messier objects
- Visual observation of the Messier objects
- Photography of the Messier objects
- The 110 Messier objects
- M 1
- M 2
- M 3
- M 4
- M 5
- M 6
- M 7
- M 8
- M 9
- M 10
- M 11
- M 12
- M 13
- M 14
- M 15
- M 16
- M 17
- M 18
- M 19
- M 20
- M 21
- M 22
- M 23
- M 24
- M 25
- M 26
- M 27
- M 28
- M 29
- M 30
- M 31
- M 32
- M 33
- M 34
- M 35
- M 36
- M 37
- M 38
- 39
- M 40
- M 41
- M 42
- M 43
- M 44
- M 45
- M 46
- M 47
- M 48
- M 49
- M 50
- M 51
- M 52
- M 53
- M 54
- M 55
- M 56
- M 57
- M 58
- M 59
- M 60
- M 61
- M 62
- M 63
- M 64
- M 65
- M 66
- M 67
- M 68
- M 69
- M 70
- M 71
- M 72
- M 73
- M 74
- M 75
- M 76
- M 77
- M 78
- M 79
- M 80
- M 81
- M 82
- M 83
- M 84
- M 85
- M 86
- M 87
- M 88
- M 89
- M 90
- M 91
- M 92
- M 93
- M 94
- M 95
- M 96
- M 97
- M 98
- M 99
- M 100
- M 101
- M 102
- M 103
- M 104
- M 105
- M 106
- M 107
- M 108
- M 109
- M 110
- Glossary of technical terms
- Index of figures
- Index of sources
Summary
The Great Orion Nebula
Degree of difficulty 1 (of 5)
Minimum aperture Naked eye
Designation NGC 1976
Type Galactic nebula
Class Emission and reflection nebula
Distance 1300 ly (K2005) 1470 ly (2003), 1530 ly (2001)
Size 35 ly
Constellation Orion
R.A. 5h 35.3min
Decl. –5° 23′
Magnitude 3.7
Surface brightness 20mag/arcsec2
Apparent diameter 90′×60′
Discoverer Peiresc, 1611
History M 42, the Great Orion Nebula, was not known to the pre-telescopic observers. Neither do we find hints in the documents of antiquity that would suggest sightings of this nebula with the naked eye. Rather, both Ptolemy and Tycho cataloged, at the position of M 42, a star: θ Orionis.
The Frenchman Nicholas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc was the first to mention this nebula in 1611. By 1609, Galileo Galilei had made a sketch of that star field with his telescope. He counted 80 stars but, mysteriously, did not recognize M 42. However, an independent discovery was made in 1611 by Johann Baptist Cysatus.
The first of a large number of historic drawings of this nebula was made by Giovanni Batista Hodierna in 1654. Two years later, Christian Huygens observed M 42 and described the view with the words: “In the sword of Orion, three stars are rather close to each other. In 1656, when I observed the one of them in the middle with my telescope, twelve stars appeared. Three of them nearly touched each other [the Trapezium] and, together with four other, were shining through a nebula, so that the space around them was brighter than the rest of the sky, which was perfectly clear and dark; it formed the effect of an opening in the sky, through which a brighter region became visible.”
Following this first mention of the Trapezium, the fourth Trapezium star was discovered in 1673 by Picard, and confirmed by Huygens in 1684.
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- Information
- Atlas of the Messier ObjectsHighlights of the Deep Sky, pp. 173 - 182Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2008