He believed that the nebulae were objects within the Milky Way. Advertisement Charles Messier also produced a catalog of over 100 prominent nebulae in 1781. Messier was interested in comets ...

Charles Messier also produced a catalog of over 100 prominent nebulae in 1781. Messier was interested in comets, so his list was a set of fuzzy objects that might be mistaken for comets.

Nature of the nebulae In 1610, astronomer Galileo Galilei used the newly invented telescope to show that the Milky Way was composed of a huge number of faint stars. For the next 300 years, astronomers ...