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Keyword: messier15

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  • Astronomy Picture of the Day -- Comet Garradd and Messier 15

    08/06/2011 3:54:19 AM PDT · by SunkenCiv · 7 replies
    NASA ^ | August 06, 2011 | (see photo credit)
    Explanation: Recorded on August 2, this telescopic composite image catches Comet Garradd (C/2009 P1) in the same field of view as globular star cluster M15. The celestial scene would have been a rewarding one for influential 18th century comet hunter Charles Messier. While Messier scanned French skies for comets, he carefully cataloged positions of things which might be fuzzy and comet-like in appearance but did not move against the background stars and so were definitely not comets. M15 (lower right), the 15th entry in his famous not-a-comet catalog, is now understood to be a cluster of over 100,000 stars some...