Back in the late 18th and early 19th centuries — long before anyone had any real idea of all that lay out there among the stars — a French astronomer spent his nights scouring the sky for his prey.

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. Photographer Alan Dyer observes the star clusters Messier 7 and Messier 6 near the horizon above Montana’s Sweetgrass Hills—two of ...

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (KCRG) - “When I was a kid, my cousin showed me Saturn from a telescope when I was young and that got me hooked.” Tom Weber, the President of the Cedar Amateur Astronomers recalled.

In 1781, French astronomer Charles Messier published a catalog of 103 objects in the heavens. He was primarily interested in comets, but kept finding fuzzy smudges that did not move against the ...

This new image of the rose-coloured star forming region Messier 17 was captured by the Wide Field Imager on the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile. It is one of the ...

It’s been six months since astronomy clubs around the globe hosted events for the Messier marathon. The goal of this single-night observing challenge is to catch all 109 deep-sky objects in French ...

Messier 18 was discovered and catalogued in 1764 by Charles Messier — for whom the Messier Objects are named — during his search for comet-like objects. It lies within the Milky Way, approximately ...

For one brief stretch each spring, amateur astronomers attempt one of backyard astronomy’s most ambitious challenges: spotting an entire catalog of deep-sky objects in a single night. Known as the ...