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Messier catalog

(Encyclopedia)Messier catalog mĕsyāˈ [key], systematic list of nebulae and star clusters. A first list, compiled and published in 1771 by Charles Messier, contained 45 objects. The final list, published in 1784,...

galaxy

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Hubble classification of galaxies: Elliptical galaxies (E) are classified according to the degree of flattening of the ellipse. Spiral galaxies (S) and barred spiral galaxies (SB) are classifie...

Young, Charles Augustus

(Encyclopedia)Young, Charles Augustus, 1834–1908, American astronomer, b. Hanover, N.H., grad. Dartmouth, 1853. He discovered the reversing layer of the solar atmosphere and proved the gaseous nature of the sun's...

nebula

(Encyclopedia)nebula nĕbˈyo͝olə [key] [Lat.,=mist], in astronomy, observed manifestation of a collection of highly rarefied gas and dust in interstellar space. Prior to the 1960s this term was also applied to b...

New General Catalog

(Encyclopedia)New General Catalog (NGC), standard reference list of nebulae (see nebula). It is based on the General Catalog, published in 1864, which included 2,500 nebulae cataloged by William Herschel and an add...

Low, Frank James

(Encyclopedia)Low, Frank James, 1933–2009, American astronomer and physicist, b. Mobile, Ala., grad. Yale (B.S. 1955), Rice Univ. (M.A. 1957, Ph.D 1959). Low, who worked at Texas Instruments and the National Radi...

Pisces

(Encyclopedia)Pisces pīˈsēz [key] [Lat.,=the fishes], constellation lying directly S of Andromeda and on the ecliptic (the sun's apparent path through the heavens) between Aries and Aquarius; it is one of the co...

Möbius, Augustus Ferdinand

(Encyclopedia)Möbius, Augustus Ferdinand mōˈbēəs, Ger. möˈbēəs [key],(1790–1868), German mathematician and astronomer, b. Schulpforta, Saxony. A professor of astronomy at the Univ. of Leipzig, he made im...

astrometry

(Encyclopedia)astrometry: see astronomy.

Ganesa

(Encyclopedia)Ganesa gənāˈsə [key], b. 1507, d. after 1564, Indian astronomer. As a boy of 13 in a village N of Mumbai, Ganesa wrote a treatise on astronomy, the Grahalaghava, which has often been reprinted and...