How the Messier pages were created -

Creating the Messier Pages

These pages were created by

SEDS

members

Guy McArthur

(“Mr. Guy Smiley”),

Mark Elowitz,

Hartmut Frommert

and Christine Kronberg.

The original image selection and processing was done by Mark Elowitz.

Guy McArthur has worked out the logic and original design of the pages,

created a C program to write out the Messier files,

used Bitmap Tool and XV to create the icons,

and made the first version of the pages work in late 1994.

H.S. Teoh provided a list arranging the

objects by type.

Hartmut Frommert has provided most of the textual information,

parts of the data, many of the index files, many new additional images,

and more common names for the objects, and has added a lot of features

like the image quick-browser

(inspired by Bill Arnett‘s

DSSM browser),

the photo index,

the hot topic page,

and various extra materials as

the historic pages,

the collection of

similar catalogs and observing lists

and the Messier Marathon stuff.

He is currently maintaining this project (since late 1995), trying to extend

it to comprehensive coverage of all Messier-related stuff suitable for the Web.

Christine Kronberg has entered the project silently in early 1996. In close

cooperation with Hartmut Frommert, she has contributed significantly to make

these pages what they are now. She has reviewed all Messier object pages, and

contributed countless propositions, corrections and bugfixes. Her outstanding

constellation charts, originally created for her

Constellations and Stars pages (now also

mirrored at SEDS),

are going to replace our older star maps,

and it was her idea to make these pages multi-lingual.

The current layout of these pages is a product of the outstanding cooperation

of Chris and Hartmut. Moreover, Chris has built up our first (partial)

Mirror in Munich,

at her Munich Astronomical Archive,

and has created a

German version of the Messier pages.

Many of these images were obtained from another Messier Catalog server

at convex.ct.astro.it (which is now available in html at

http://www.ct.astro.it/oggmessier1.html).

We also utilized our extensive archive of

deepspace images for alternate images.

The original sky charts were created by the excellent public-domain Windows

astronomy/space/satellite-tracking program

Home Planet

created by John Walker.

Much thanks to Dr. Walker for allowing us to freely use Home Planet to

create these charts.

A Messier image for the homepage icon was generously provided by

Sky Publishing Corporation;

they also granted permission to use their

catalog materials on Messier here, thanks !

Special thanks go to David Malin

of the Anglo Australian Observatory

for offering and encouraging the use of his outstanding astronomical color

photographs in these pages,

to Dr. Don Greeley for his contributions to the

M102 discussion and for providing me with a copy of Messier’s original

historic catalog,

to Leos Ondra

for the permission to include his articles,

to Paul Scowen for providing

his HST images of and info on the Crab Nebula,

to Tony Cecce for contributing his

Twelve Month Tour of the Messier Catalog,

and to David Nash for his

contribution on the

history of the Messier Catalog.

In addition, the present maintainer wants to express thanks to all who

contributed comments, propositions, error fixes and more:

Besides very particular and cordial thanks to my co-author Chris Kronberg,

these go especially to

Mark Wagner and

Leos Ondra, to name

just some of the most helpful (in no particular order; forgive me that I

cannot write down the whole list). A very particular appreciation also goes to

Chris Lewicki, the admin of this

server, for providing the technological foundations for this service, and

his always helpful cooperation and support.

We also thank all our contributors deeply and

cordially !

Continuing Updates for 1998:

Adding links to other images
(e.g., HST photos)
Improving the descriptions, getting further information for the objects
Adding some more historic stuff
on Messier and Deep Sky discoveries
Looking for some more
similar catalogs

and information on them
Creating a list of the most well-known non-Messier NGC objects
Adding constellation deep-sky charts and “star-hop” information
Correcting any other bugs and errors

Although we have invested a certain amount of research effort, some important

data and informations on the Messier objects are either difficult to obtain, or

not very wellknown at all. We have compiled a

list to request some of the most urgently needed

information; it would be great if you could help to improve our database !

If you have any commments or suggestions, or have anything to add, please e-mail

Last Modification: 24 Jan 1998, 13:10 MET