Charles Messier (the Comet Ferret)

In a rather ironic turn of events, an astronomer who was interested solely in finding comets compiled a list of objects in space that hindered his search for them. "Catalogue des Nébuleuses et des Amas d'Étoiles" ("Catalogue of Nebulae and Star Clusters"), also known as the Messier Catalog, would become one of the most well-known and widely-used references for future astronomers.

Charles Messier painting by Ansiaume, Circa 1770

Born in Badonviller, Meurthe-et-Moselle, Lorraine, France on June 26, 1730, Charles Messier (sharl meh-SYAY) was the tenth of twelve children of Françoise B. Grandblaise and Nicolas Messier. By the time Charles was eleven, his father and half his siblings had died. Charles' 24-year old brother, Hyacinthe, a curator with the Navy, took over the care of his younger brother.

When Hyacinthe was away, Charles was playing in the house and fell through a window, breaking his femur, the long bone of the thigh. Charles found himself under the care of a neighboring farmer until his brother returned. Seeing how this injury had impaired Charles for physical work, Hyacinthe took the boy out of school and took over his education, focusing on administrative and methodical work.

The appearance of the Great Comet of 1744, a spectacular six-tailed comet, sparked young Charles' interest in astronomy. A solar eclipse seen from his hometown four years later further fueled Charles' desire to explore the "great beyond".

In 1751, Charles traveled to Paris and took employment with Joseph Nicolas Delisle, French Naval astronomer. Delisle had returned to Paris after spending a little over 20 years in Saint Petersburg, where he created and ran the school of astronomy. By 1753, Charles had become a highly competent observer; his first documented observation was that of the Mercury transit in May of 1753.

Although Comet Halley was not expected to return until 1758, Charles began searching for the comet sometime in 1757. Delisle had erroneously calculated the expected path of the comet and Charles tried in vain to find the comet until August 14, 1758. At that time, he located and telescopically followed a comet until November of the same year. Comet De la Nux had been previously discovered on May 26, 1758.

While conducting his search for Comet Halley, Charles came across a comet-like configuration in the constellation Taurus. Although not a comet, this object became the first entry in the Messier Catalog - the Crab Nebula (M1). As an avid comet hunter, Charles began listing deep-sky objects that might be mistaken for comets. That list grew in time to total 110 objects, including 13 comets Charles is credited as having discovered.

Notice de mes comètes (Notes on my comets) is a manuscript written by Charles, describing in detail 44 comets that he observed between the years of 1758 and 1805.

Nicknamed Comet Ferret by King Louis XV, Charles added 38 objects to his catalogue during an extremely productive seven-month search for comets in 1764. Among the objects included were the Andromeda Galaxy (M31) and the Swan Nebula (M17). Comet Ferret outdid himself five years later when, on March 4, he determined the positions of four new entries:

• the Orion Nebula (M42 and M43)
• the Beehive Cluster (M44)
• the Pleiades (M45)

Messier's original catalogue, published in 1774, contained only 45 objects. By the time of the last publication in 1781, the list had grown to 103 objects. From 1921 to 1966, evidence was discovered by astronomers and historians of an additional seven deep-sky objects, M104 through M110, that are now accepted as "official" Messier objects by astronomers.

Great Comet of 1744

Charles Messier received a great deal of recognition for his unparalleled work in the field of astronomy. He received a fellowship to the Royal Society, a foreign member election to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, an election to the French Academy of Sciences and, in addition, was awarded the Cross of the Legion of Honor.

Messier died April 12, 1817 at the age of 86, two years after suffering a debilitating stroke.

Author Resource: Written by Starr Hendon

Williamina Fleming (From Maid to Astronomer)

On May 15, 1857, Robert and Mary Walker Stevens brought Williamina Paton Stevens into this world in Dundee, Scotland. Mina, as she was known to those close to her, would later in her life make an impact in the world of astronomy.

Williamina Fleming Circa 1890's

Little is known of Williamina's early life in Scotland. She became a student teacher at the age of 14 while attending public school in Scotland. She continued teaching until her marriage to James Orr Fleming on May 26, 1877. A little more than six months after the marriage, James and Williamina set sail for America, settling in Boston, Massachusetts. Shortly after their arrival in the States, James abandoned his newly pregnant wife.

With family and friends thousands of miles and an ocean away, Williamina needed a way to support herself and her unborn child Edward, who would be born in the fall of 1879 during a trip back to Scotland. She found employment as a maid for Edward Charles Pickering, who happened to be the director of Harvard College Observatory.

Pickering, unhappy with the work of one of his male assistants, proclaimed that his maid could do a better job than the assistant was doing. Thus began the Scottish teacher's new vocation. Williamina, while working at the Observatory, proved Pickering was far more correct than even he could have imagined when making that statement.

Williamina was part of a team responsible for cataloguing stars in what would become the Draper Catalogue of Stellar Spectra. In the nine years spent on the project, she catalogued in excess of 10,000 stars. She is credited with the discovery of 59 gaseous nebulae, 10 novae and over 310 variable stars, 222 of which were listed in the 1907 publication A Photographic Study of Variable Stars. Regarding the publication, a British astronomer stated, "Many astronomers are deservedly proud to have discovered one...the discovery of 222...is an achievement bordering on the marvellous."

In 1888, while working with Harvard plate B2312, Williamina discovered the Horsehead Nebula (also known as IC-434) in a photo taken by William Pickering, brother of Edward. She described this bright nebula as having " a semicircular indentation 5 minutes in diameter 30 minutes south of Zeta [Orionis]."

Williamina and William did not receive due credit for this discovery for years. JLE Dreyer, who compiled the first Index Catalogue, removed Williamina's name from objects listed as discovered by Harvard. Credit was given to simply "Pickering", whom most people took to mean Edward Charles. By the time the second Index Catalogue was published by Dreyer in 1908, Williamina and several of her associates were well known enough to finally receive the credit they deserved.

Williamina Fleming and the "computers"

Williamina's duties at the Observatory were expanded and she found herself in charge of the "computers", a rather large group, numbering in the dozens, of young women employed to identify stars on the plates and then calculate the positions of those stars. She was also responsible for editing all of the publications that the Observatory issued. Her work proved to be so exemplary that in 1898, she was appointed curator of astronomical photographs by Harvard Corporation, the first such appointment held by a woman.

In recognition of her outstanding contribution to astronomy, the Royal Astronomical Society made Williamina an honorary member in 1906, making her the first American woman to hold such a position. Wellesley College appointed her honorary fellow in astronomy soon thereafter. Shortly before her death on May 21, 1911 from pneumonia, Williamina was awarded the Guadalupe Almendaro medal by the Astronomical Society of Mexico.

Williamina Paton Stevens Fleming - astronomer extraordinaire!



Article Resource: Written by Starr Hendon

Getting to Know Galileo

By MaryLou Driedger

Getting to know Galileo was an unexpected pleasure on my recent trip to Italy. I learned many new things about Galileo, as I walked the streets of the cities where he lived and worked. Galileo is perhaps the world’s most famous astronomer and physicist.

The Museum of Science in Florence has a large display of telescopes some of them 400 years old created by Galileo and other early astronomers. One can only marvel at the persistence of these scientists. They had to scrounge around for suitable building materials and were often ridiculed for their scientific ideas. Galileo wrote a book called The Starry Messenger in which he describes his discovery of The Milky Way and the four moons of Jupiter. He presented the original bound copy to Cosimo Medici, the Grand Duke of Tuscany along with the first telescope he invented. That copy of the Starry Messenger and the telescope are both displayed in the Museum of Science in Florence. My favorite item in the museum was a grocery list. It’s a page from one of Galileo’s notebooks on which he’s listed the supplies for a scientific experiment having to do with optics. Interspersed in that list he has scribbled words like chickpeas, rice, pepper and sugar, obviously grocery items he needs. Even people working on groundbreaking discoveries need to be concerned about the more mundane aspects of everyday life.

The experiment Galileo is perhaps most famous for is one he conducted at the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Galileo, who was born in Pisa, gathered a group of scholars together to watch as he dropped a heavy cannon ball and a lighter musket ball off the Leaning Tower of Pisa to prove that both fall at the same speed. We visited the Leaning Tower on a cold, rainy day and although we did not climb to the top of the tower to try to recreate Galileo’s experiment we did go inside the nearby cathedral. We saw a large, ornate brass lamp that inspired Galileo to invent the pendulum. Galileo was sitting in church one Sunday when he was a student at the University of Pisa. During the service he watched that lamp swinging back and forth and that’s what prompted him to begin a study of pendulums.

One place we didn’t get to visit in Florence, because it is in the process of being restored, was the home where Galileo lived under house arrest for the last decade of his life after being condemned by the Catholic Church for insisting the sun and not the earth was the centre of the solar system.

At the Pitti Palace in Florence I saw Susterman’s portrait of Galileo prominently displayed along with the likenesses of other famous citizens. We visited the Santa Croce Cathedral where I took photographs of the tomb where Galileo is buried. It’s nice to know that while he ended his life as a prisoner Galileo is being properly honored now for the contributions he made to the scientific world.

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The First Man to Enter Outer Space - Yuri Gagarin

By Shawna S. Ruppert

Yuri Gagarin trivia should be interesting to anyone who has an interest in the space race, astronomy, or the various space programs of the world, as he stands in the category of the most important explorers and pioneers of outer space. Full name Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin, he was a cosmonaut who lived from 1934-1968. Although American's frequently think of Neil Armstrong as the greatest explorer of outer space, it needs to be remembered that he was only the first on the moon. A Yuri Gagarin quiz would reveal that Gagarin was the person who completed two, perhaps even more significant firsts, he was the first person to ever travel to outer space, and to orbit the earth, two events which would pave the way not only for Armstrong, but also for all future space exploration.

An interesting point of Yuri Gagarin trivia is that he was incredibly short for a full grown Russian Man, measuring only 5'2" tall when full grown. This was something that actually turned into an advantage for Gagarin. He learned to fly during high school but them proceeded to military flight training, and his small size allowed him to fit with more comfort and more maneuverability into some of the extremely cramped quarters in certain planes. He began flying in the Soviet Airforce as a pilot of a MiG 15. His entry into the cosmonaut program was due to his being able to fit in the tiny Vostok cockpit, and due to his incredible physical and mental toughness.

Gagarin became a worldwide hero after his venture into space. He would tour the world to discuss the flight, and quickly rose in the ranks of the Air Force as the greatest hero the people of the time had. Gagarin was a Colonel by 1963, but was held back from active duty in space flight due to the politicians and commanders of the military's fears about losing the popular face of their efforts. He was scheduled to be the backup pilot for Cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov, but after Komaraov's flight killed him, the authorities chose to protect Gagarin and prevented him from flying the mission.

Gagarin was killed in 1968 in a routine flight in a MiG-15, a plane he was certainly familiar with. There have been conflicting reports and theories that would be part of any Yuri Gagarin quiz which attempt to explain the accident, ranging from poor weather reports to other planes passing too close to Gagarin's flight path.

Masters of Trivia is a website dedicated to trivia games and quizzes that cover several different areas of interest. The various trivia questions available on the site can be easily accessed and played by going to http://www.mastersoftrivia.com

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