Les notes bibliographiques/biographiques en français sont disponibles ici.

Abell North-South

Contains 4076 Objects

“A catalog of rich clusters of galaxies” (tables 3-4)
George Ogden Abell, Harold G. Corwin, Jr., Ronald P. Olowin
Published in Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series, vol. 70, May 1989, p. 1–138

Abell was born 1927-03-01 and 1983-10-07 “from a cardiac problem” – he was survived by his second wife, Phyllis, and two sons from a first wife.
Corwin works at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center (Jet Propulsion Laboratory / California Institute of Technology)
Olowin is a professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, Saint Mary’s College, California

This work includes Abell’s “The Distribution of Rich Clusters of Galaxies”, Astrophysical Journal Supplement, vol. 3, p. 211 (1958)

Abell Supplement

Contains 1174 Objects

“A catalog of rich clusters of galaxies” (table 5)
See information in “Abell North-South” above

Arp

Contains 338 Objects

“Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies”
Halton Christian Arp
Published in Astrophysical Journal Supplement, vol. 14, p. 1 (1966)

Arp was born 1927-03-21 in New York City, earned his Ph.D. from Caltech in 1953, and has been working at the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics in Germany since 1983. He maintains a Website exposing his views on cosmology.

Barnard

Contains 349 Objects

A photographic atlas of selected regions of the Milky way
Edward Emerson Barnard
Published as a book of its own (1927), posthumously by Edwin Brant Frost and Mary R. Calvert

Barnard was born 1857-12-16 in Nashville, Tennessee, United States of America, and died 1923-02-06 in Williams Bay, Wisconsin, United States of America.

The last entry in the catalogue is #370, but there are some objects missing. Nos. 52, 131a and 172 were the same object listed twice, so they are not included.

Barnard gave a first list of dark nebulæ in “On the dark markings of the sky, with a catalogue of 182 such objects”, published in Astrophysical Journal, vol. 49, p. 1–24.

Barnard later started a second list of dark nebulæ, whose positions were determined by Mary Calvert. He never really completed it, but Frost and Calvert published his atlas after Barnard’s death – this second list starts at #201, which means that there are no objects between #176 and #200 inclusively.

Berkeley

Contains 104 Objects

“Newly Found Star Clusters”
A.F. Setteducati and H.F. Weaver, 1960? or 1962?

Archinal and Hynes, in Star Clusters (2003), mention that they “have been unable to locate a copy of this publication. It is cited in the Lund Catalogue (with a publication date of 1962) and Ruprecht, et al., [1981] (with a publication date of 1960, assumed here).”

Biurakan

Contains 13 Objects

1–6: (Article title unknown), published in Proceedings of Armenian Academy of Sciences, vol. 29 (no. 5) [1959].
7–11: “Five New Open Clusters”, published in Soobshch. Byurakan Obs. 28: p. 43–49. [1960]
12–13: Reference unknown
S.G. Iskudarian

Named for Biurakan (also spelled Byurakan or Bjurakan) Observatory near Yerevan, Armenia.

Bochum

Contains 15 Objects

1–7: “Southern Open Star Clusters IV. UBV-Hβ Photometry of 26 Clusters from Monoceros to Vela”
A.F.J. Moffat and N. Vogt
Published in Astronomy and Astrophysics Supplement Series, vol. 20, p. 85–124 (1975)

8–12: “Southern Open Star Clusters V. UBV-Hβ Photometry of 20 Clusters in Carina”
A.F.J. Moffat and N. Vogt
Published in Astronomy and Astrophysics Supplement Series, vol. 20, p. 125–153 (1975)

13–14: “Southern Open Star Clusters VI. UBV-Bβ Photometry of 18 Clusters from Centaurus to Sagittarius”
A.F.J. Moffat and N. Vogt
Published in Astronomy and Astrophysics Supplement Series, vol. 20, p. 155–182 (1975)

15: “Bochum 15, a New Young Stellar Aggregate in Puppis”
M. P. FitzGerald, R. Hurkens and A.F.J. Moffat
Published in Astronomy & Astrophysics, vol. 46, p. 287–291 (1976)

Caldwell

Contains 109 Objects

“Beyond Messier: The Caldwell Catalog”
Sir Alfred Patrick Caldwell-Moore
Published in Sky & Telescope, volume 90, number 6, page 38 (December 1995)

Moore was born 1923-03-04 in Pinner, England. This catalogue is a list of 109 objects that he felt deserved at least as much attention as the Messier objects. All have previous designations (most in the NGC), and therefore SHOULD NOT be referred to as “Caldwell ###”, but as “NGC ###”, for example.

Collinder

Contains 471 Objects

“On Structural Properties of Open Galactic Clusters and their Spatial Distribution”
Per Arne Collinder
Published in Annals of the Observatory of Lund no. 2

Collinder was born 1890-05-22 in Sundsvall, Sweden, and died 1975-12-06 in Uppsala, Sweden. According to RootsWeb (Jan Eurenius Database), his parents were Erik Persson Collinder (born 1848-07-21 in Arbrå, son of Per Jonsson [himself son of Jonas Jonsson and Gölin Persdotter] and Sigrid Helena Åsberg [herself daughter of Anders Åsberg and Brita Mårtensdotter]) and Viola Horney (born 1858 in Sundsvall).

Collinder’s first wife, with whom he had 4 children (Kerstin [born 1925], Erik [born 1927] and two others) was Lisa Wallin, and on 1947-07-13 he married Ingeborg Hjelmkvist (1900-05-24 Karlskoga – 1989-01-08).

Dolidze

Contains 47 or 57 Objects, depending on the source

1–11: “On the Star Cluster near γ Cyg”
Madona V. Dolidze
Published in Astr. Cirk. 223: 11–12 (1961).

12–46: “Some Data of the Nebulae and Star Clusters”
Madona V. Dolidze
Published in Astr. Cirk. 224: 18–22.

47: Reference unknown.

47b–57: “Lists of S, C, and MS stars and emission-line objects revealed by red-light observations”
Madona V. Dolidze
Published in Abastumanskaia Astrofizicheskaia Observatoriia, Biulleten', no. 47, p. 3-144 (1975).

References to objects 47b to 57 have been located by Matthias Kronberger and are given on Wilton S. Dias’ Web site on Open Clusters and Galactic Structure.

Dolidze-Dzimselejsvili

Contains 11 Objects

“New Possible Star Clusters”
Madona V. Dolidze and G. N. Dzimselejsvili (or Jimsheleishvili)
Published in Astr. Cirk. 382, p. 7–8 (1967).

All are visible with an 80-mm refractor or a 90-mm reflector, and most with 8× 30 mm binoculars.

Gum

Contains 85 Objects

“A survey of southern HII regions” aka “A study of diffuse southern H-alpha nebulae”
Colin Stanley Gum
Published in Memoirs of the Royal Astronomical Society, 67, 155-177 (1955)

Gum was born in 1924 and died 1960-04-29 in Zermatt, Switzerland. He became sick after writing his PhD thesis, and his supervisor Ben Gascoigne “had to supply all the references, and found that looking them up was a tedious and difficult job – [he] finished up knowing an awful lot about H-alpha regions [him]self!” When Gum came out of the hospital, he submitted his thesis, which was at first refused, but Gascoigne fought for him, and got a second review of it done, and finally, Gum passed his PhD.

Some letter extensions make the total number of objects greater than 85.

Henize LMC

Contains 221 Objects

“Catalogues of Hα-Emission Stars and Nebulae in the Magellanic Clouds”
Karl Gordon Henize
Published in Astrophysical Journal Supplement, vol. 2, p.315

Henize was born 1926-10-17 in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States of America, and died 1993-10-05 on Mount Everest, in Nepal. Aside from his astronomy/astrophysics work, Henize was a mission specialist on the Spacelab-2 mission (STS-51-F) in 1985. Some letter extensions make the total number of objects greater than 221.

Henize SMC

Contains 90 Objects

“Catalogues of Hα-Emission Stars and Nebulae in the Magellanic Clouds”
Karl Gordon Henize
Published in Astrophysical Journal Supplement, vol. 2, p.315

See above (Henize LMC) for information about Henize. Again, some letter extensions make the total number of objects greater than 90.

IC1

Contains 1529 Objects

“Index Catalogue of Nebulae found in the years 1888 to 1894, with Notes and Corrections to the New General Catalogue”
Johan Ludvig Emil Dreyer
Published in Memoirs of the Royal Astronomical Society, 51, 185-228

See the NGC for information about Dreyer.

IC2

Contains 3857 Objects

(Second) “Index Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters of Stars, containing objects found in the years 1895 to 1907; with Notes and Corrections to the New General Catalogue and to the Index Catalogue for 1888-94”
Johan Ludvig Emil Dreyer
Published in Memoirs of the Royal Astronomical Society, 59, 105-198

See the NGC for information about Dreyer.

King

Contains 27 Objects

1–21: “Some New Galactic Clusters”
Ivan R. King
Published in Harvard College Observatory Bulletin No. 919, p. 41–42 (1949)

22: “A New Galactic Cluster”
Ivan R. King
Published in Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, Vol. 73, No. 431, p. 163–164 (April 1961)

23-27: “Five New Open Clusters”
Ivan R. King
Published in Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, Vol. 78, No. 461, p. 81–82 (February 1966)

LBN

Contains 1125 Objects

“Catalogue of Bright Nebulae”
Beverly T. Lynds
Published in Astrophysical Journal Supplement, vol. 12, p.163

Lynds is still alive.

LDN

Contains 1791 Objects

“Catalogue of Dark Nebulae”
Beverly T. Lynds
Published in Astrophysical Journal Supplement, vol. 7, p.1

Lynds is still alive.

Mandel-Wilson

Contains 9 Objects

“Mandel-Wilson Catalogue of Unexplored Nebulae”
Steve Mandel
Published on Mandel’s Website only.

Markarian OC

Contains 50 Objects

“On the classification of open (galactic) stellar clusters. II. Preliminary list of open O-type star clusters.”
Benjamin (Benik) Jegischewitsch Markarjan
Published in Soobshch. Byurakan Obs., 9, 1-40

Markarjan (Բենիամին Մարգարյան in Armenian, Вениамин Егишевич Маркарян in Russian) was born 1913-11-29 in Schulawer/Schahumjan, Armenia and died 1985-09-29.

Melotte

Contains 245 Objects

“A Catalogue of Star Clusters shown on Franklin-Adams Chart Plates”
Philibert Jacques Melotte
Published in Memoirs of the Royal Astronomical Society, 60, 175–186

Melotte was born 1880-01-29 and died 1961-03-30. He was British from Belgian-born parents. He was awarded the Jackson-Gwilt Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1909.

Messier

Contains 110 Objects

“Catalogue des nébuleuses et des amas d’étoiles”
Charles Messier
Published in Connoissance des Temps pour 1784, 227–267 (published 1781)

Messier was born 1730-06-26 in Badonviller, France and died 1817-04-12 in Paris, France. Messier was a very prolific comet hunter (nicknamed “the Comet Ferret” by King Louis XV), having discovered 13 of them, plus 7 more for which he is a co-discoverer. Oddly enough, Messier drew his list of deep-sky objects as to avoid them, as they looked like comets in his eyepiece, and he did not want to possibly mistake them for new comets.

The first list (“Catalogue des Nébuleuses & des amas d’Étoiles, que l’on découvre parmi les Étoiles fixes sur l’horizon de Paris; observées à l’Observatoire de la Marine, avec différens instruments”, published in Mémoires de l’Académie Royale des Sciences for 1771, Paris (dated February 16, 1771, published 1774), p. 435–461 + Pl. VIII, included 45 objects.

Twenty-three more objects (total 68) were added in a reprint of the original in “Catalogue des Nébuleuses & des amas d’Étoiles”, published in Connoissance des Temps pour 1783 (published 1780), p. 225–249.

The same publication included objects M69 and M70 on page 408.

Finally, in the Connoissance des Temps pour 1784, Messier published his final list, including 103 objects (though there are descriptions for objects will later became M108 and M109).

It must be noted that objects M101, M102 and M103 were only mentioned by Messier as having been observed by his fellow Pierre Méchain, and not by him. Two years later, Méchain claimed (in a letter that was later used by Helen Sawyer Hogg and Owen Gingerich [and not Camille Flammarion, as sometimes stated] to add objects M104 to M109) that M102 was a reobservation of M101, but some people argue against this, on the basis that Méchain probably mistook the Greek letter θ (theta) for ο (omicron) on his sky charts.

There are a number of other errors in the Messier’s catalogue or its early versions, some corrected by Messier, others not. I will not cover them here, but in the page about the Messier catalogue itself.

A lot more biographical information about him is available on SEDS and Wikipedia.

NGC

Contains 7840 Objects

“A New General Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters of Stars, being the Catalogue of the late Sir John F.W. Herschel, Bart., revised, corrected, and enlarged”
Johan Ludvig Emil Dreyer
Published in Memoirs of the Royal Astronomical Society, vol. 49, p. 1–237 (1888)

Dreyer was born 1852-02-13 in Copenhagen, Danmark and died 1926-09-14 in Oxford, England. He moved to Ireland in 1874 to work for Lawrence Parsons, 4^th Earl of Rosse (son of William Parsons, 3^rd Earl of Rosse, who had built the largest telescope of its time, the “Leviathan of Parsonstown”, in what is now Birr, Ireland). At the time of the publication of the NGC, Dreyer was director of the Armagh Observatory (since 1882).

Dreyer had submitted, a few years earlier, a first addition to Sir William Herschel’s General Catalogue, which was published in the Memoirs of the Royal Astronomical Society. When he submitted a second addition, the RAS refused to publish it, asking instead for a full resorting of all the objects in the original General Catalogue and the two additions. This became the New General Catalogue.

Since Dreyer did not observe all 7,840 NGC objects himself, but mostly compiled observations by others – all by hand, of course, since computers were still way ahead in the future –, many mistakes were bound to happen:

• The original observer might not have written the information down properly;
• the information might not have been transmitted to Dreyer properly;
• Dreyer might not have copied the information properly;
• finally, the printer might have made mistakes as well (many possibilities there too: e.g. wrong character or sequence of characters, back when each character was a moulded block of lead).

Many attempts have been made to correct the NGC:

• In 1973, Jack W. Sulentic and William G. Tifft published the “Revised New General Catalogue”, but they were rushed by their publisher, so did not have time to complete the task: consequently, many objects which they note as “non-existent” actually do exist (see for example Brent Archinal’s ‘The “Non-Existent” Star Clusters of the RNGC’);
• Roger W. Sinnott, then editor of Sky & Telescope magazine’s “Telescope Making” department, published in 1988 “NGC 2000.0”, to coincide with the centennial of Dreyer’s publication. Though he did somewhat of a better job than was done in the RNGC (though the NGC 2000.0 seems to be less known than the RNGC), he also was limited in time, and the task could not be fulfilled;
• the NGC/IC Project (now apparently dead) has reduced the number of “non-existent” or “unknown” objects from 793 in the RNGC or 618 in the NGC 2000.0, to only 98. However, it was maintaining three or four different databases (by Harold G. Corwin, Malcolm J. Thomson and Steve Gottlieb, notably), with some discrepancies between them;
• Wolfgang Steinicke’s work seems to be the most complete to date. He started his own revision of both the NGC and IC around 1981, joined the NGC/IC Project for a while (after they used his information without quoting him, he left), and currently maintains his own Website, in German and English. As of 2008, there were only 94 objects with status “not found” in the NGC, and 224 in the IC. According to a recent private e-mail, Steinicke should publish a new version in early- to mid-2009 of his “Revised New General Catalogue and Index Catalogue”.

PK

Contains 1510 Objects

“Catalogue of Galactic Planetary Nebulae”
Luboš Perek and Luboš Kohoutek
Published in a book of its own

Both seem to still be alive. Perek was born 1919; Kohoutek was born 1935-01-29 in Zábřeh, then in Czechoslovakia.

Objects in this catalogue are not sequentially numbered, but instead referred to by their galactic coordinates for 1950.0.

Pişmiş

Contains 26 Objects

“Nuevos Cumulos Estelares En Regiones Del Sur”
Paris Maria Pişmiş
Published in Boletin de Los Observatorios Tonantzintla y Tacubaya vol. 18, p. 37–38 (August 1959)

Pişmiş (pronounced and sometimes written as “Pishmish”) was born (with the name Mari Sukiasyan) 1911-01-30 in Constantinople (now İstanbul), then in the Ottoman Empire (now Turkey), “was the first woman to graduate from the scientific faculty of Istanbul University” – she was also there translator for French, English and German –, and died 1999-08-01 in México City, where she had moved in 1940.

There is also a “Pişmiş Cluster” that has no number, which is equivalent to the cluster Haffner 16: it is mentioned in “Un Nuevo Cumulo Galactico En Puppis”, Boletin de Los Observatorios Tonantzintla y Tacubaya vol. 16, p 37–38 (June 1957).

RCW

Contains 182 Objects

“A catalogue of Hα-emission regions in the southern Milky Way”
Alexander William Rodgers, Colin T. Campbell, John Bartlett Whiteoak
Published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, vol. 121, p. 103 (1960)

Rodgers was born 1932-05-24 in Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia, and died 1997-10-10 in Canberra, Australia. He earned his BSc in 1953 at the University of Sydney and his PhD at the Australian National University. Carnegie Research Fellow Director of Mount Stromlo and Siding Spring Observatories 1987-92.

Whiteoak also wrote about music, retired 2001, and seems to still be alive.

Roslund

Contains 7 Objects

“Remarks on some new and some known galactic clusters”
Curt Roslund
Published in Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, vol. 72, no. 426, p. 205–207.

Roslund is a Swedish astronomer born in 1930, apparently still alive.

Ruprecht

Contains 176 Objects

1–147: “Catalogue of Star Clusters and Associations (Appendix)”
G. Alter, H. S. Hogg, F. Ruprecht, V. Vanýsek
Published in Bulletin of the Astronomical Institute of Czechoslovakia vol. 12, no. 1 (1961)
148–175: “Catalogue of Star Clusters and Associations (Appendix)”
G. Alter, H. S. Hogg, J. Ruprecht
Published in Bulletin of the Astronomical Institute of Czechoslovakia vol. 17, no. 1 (1966)
176: “Catalogue of Star Clusters and Associations. Supplement 1”
J. Ruprecht, B. Balázs, R.E. White
Published as a book of its own

Ruprecht also published “Classification of open star clusters” in Bulletin of the Astronomical Institute of Czechoslovakia, vol. 17, p. 33

Sh1

Contains 142 Objects

“A Catalogue of Emission Nebulae Near the Galactic Plane”
Stewart L. Sharpless
Published in Astrophysical Journal, vol. 118, p. 362 (1953)

Sharpless is still alive.

Sh2

Contains 313 Objects

“A Catalogue of H II Regions”
Stewart L. Sharpless
Published in Astrophysical Journal Supplement, vol. 4, p. 257 (1959)

Stock

Contains 24 Objects

1–2: “Magnitudes and Colors for Stars in Two New Galactic Clusters”
Jürgen Stock
Published in Astrophysical Journal, vol. 123, p. 258 (1956)

Stock was born 1923-07-08 in Hamburg, Germany and died 2004-04-19 in Mérida, Venezuela.

3–23: “Catalogue of Star Clusters and Associations”
Jirí (Georg) Alter, J. Ruprecht, V. Vanýsek
Published as a book of its own (1958 edition)

24: “Catalogue of Star Clusters and Associations”
Jirí (Georg) Alter, J. Ruprecht, V. Vanýsek
Published as a book of its own (1970 edition)

Trumpler

Contains 37 Objects

“Preliminary results on the distances, dimensions and space distribution of open star clusters”
Robert Julius Trumpler
Published in Lick Observatory Bulletin, vol. 14, pp.154–188 (1930), but curiously the full article is under a reference for 1928 (1928LicOB..14..154T instead of 1930LicOB..14..154T!)

Trumpler was born 1886-10-02 in Zürich, Switzerland and died 1956-09-10 in Berkeley, California, United States of America

VV

Contains 355 Objects

“Atlas and Catalogue of interacting galaxies” (Атлас и каталог взаимодействующих галактик, Atlas i katalog vzaimodeiistvuyushchikh galaktik)
Boris Aleksandrovich Vorontsov-Vel’yaminov (Борис Александрович Воронцов-Вельяминов)
Published as a book of its own

Vorontsov-Vel’yaminov was born 1904-02-14 in Dnipropetrovsk (then Yekaterinoslav), Ukraine and died 1994-01-27 in Moscow. His biography in Russian can be found here. His name is sometimes spelled Vorontsov-Velyaminov, without the apostrophe, which is the translitteration of the D sign, which represents a softening of the previous letter.

Some letter extensions make the total number of objects greater than 355.