Messier Deep Sky Objects
Charles Messier created his list as an aid to avoiding confusing deep space objects with comets. Since Messier was called the "comet ferret" and in his day was the champion comet finder, such a list was very important to him. However, in spite of our snide remarks, he must have known that his list wasn't just space junk because he included objects like the Pleiades which couldn't possibly be confused with a comet. We suspect he liked looking at these beautiful objects whenever he was looking for comets.
Messier was a careful observer, but occasionally made reporting errors and misplaced four objects. These errors were of the forms of math errors (inverted signs) or star hops from the wrong object. Three of these "lost" Messier objects have been recovered by subsequent scholarship. Only M102 remains doubtful.
M1: Crab
M2
M3
M4
M5
M6: The Butterfly
M7
M8: Lagoon Nebula
M9
M10
M11: Wild Duck Cluster
M12
M13: Hercules Cluster
M14
M15
M16: Eagle Nebula
M17: Swan / Omega Nebula
M18
M19
M20: Trifid Nebula
M21
M22
M23
M24: Sagittarius Star Cloud
M25
M26
M27: Dumbbell Nebula
M28
M29
M30
M31: Andromeda Galaxy
M32: Andromeda Satellite
M33: Triangulum Galaxy
M34
M35
M36
M37
M38
M39
M40: Winnecke 4
M41
M42: Orion Nebula
M43: Dr Mairan's Nebula
M44: Beehive Cluster
M45: Pleiades
M46
M47
M48
M49
M50
M51: Whirlpool Galaxy
M52
M53
M54: Dwarf Galaxy
M55
M56
M57: Ring Nebula
M58
M59
M60
M61
M62
M63: Sunflower Galaxy
M64: Blackeye Galaxy
M65: Leo Triplett
M66: Leo Triplett
M67
M68
M69
M70
M71
M72
M73
M74
M75
M76: Little Dumbbell Nebula
M77: Cetus A
M78
M79
M80
M81: Bode's Galaxy
M82: Cigar Galaxy
M83: Southern Pinwheel
M84
M85
M86
M87: Virgo A
M88
M89
M90
M91
M92
M93
M94
M95
M96
M97: Owl Nebula
M98
M99
M100
M101: Pinwheel Galaxy
M102: Spindle Galaxy
M103
M104: Sombrero Galaxy
M105
M106
M107
M108: Surfboard Galaxy
M109
M110: Andromeda Satellite