Discovering The Universe

- Caldwell Catalog


 Caldwell Catalog   


Patrick Moore
Sir Patrick Moore **1
The Caldwell Catalog was compiled by famous English astronomer Sir Patrick Moore as a modern version of the Messier Catalog.  Moore noted that the Messier list existed initially for the sole purpose of distinguishing deep-sky objects from the infrequent appearances of comets.  It excluded many of the brightest deep-sky objects and only included objects visible from Paris.

Moore selected 109 star clusters, nebula and galaxies to match the commonly accepted number of Messier objects (he excluded M110.)  He used his other surname, Caldwell, for the catalog name since the letter “M” was already used for Messier.  “C” became the designation for the Caldwell naming convention.    

Sky&Telescope


    Sky & Telescope published the list in its December 1995 issue.



Amateur astronomers, after they view all of the Messier catalog, often begin working through the Caldwell catalog which also includes objects from the Southern Hemisphere.

A list of the full catalog can be viewed here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caldwell_catalog
Caldwell Star Chart
Caldwell Star Chart **3























Sources:      https://www.nasa.gov/caldwell-bio
     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Moore
    

       ** - Photo Credits:
               1 - Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported Author: South Downs Planetarium
               2 - www.skyandtelescope.org
               3 - Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported