Reference Materials

Reference Materials

Facts and Figures
Click on this heading if you want to view a wide variety of physical and astronomical information. A section includes various physical constants of the Sun. Tables of orbital elements and observational parameters for all the planets (and yes, for Pluto for old times sake) as well as information on the principle satellites are contained here.

Common Names
Some of the most famous deep space objects are known by common names. For example, the huge stellar nursery in Orion is called the Great Nebula. Click here to see many of these objects by their common names.

Messier Objects
The famous french comet hunter C. Messier kept a list of fuzzy objects which were sometimes mistaken for comets. Today many of the very most spectacular deep space galaxies and nebulae have Messier numbers from 1 to 110.

Cataloged Objects
There are many thousands of other deep space objects which can be accessed by amateur equipment. These objects have the much less romantic designations of NGC [New Galactic Catalog] or IC [Index Catalog] followed by numbers.

Constellations
This section provides a reference tables cross referencing the IAU symbol, the Latin nominative and genitive forms and an English equivalent of the recognized stellar constellations.

Life List
We keep a list (although it tends to be out of date) of all the objects spotted through our Meade 16" LX200 SCT.

Facts and Figures Click on this heading if you want to view a wide variety of physical and astronomical information. A section includes various physical constants of the Sun. Tables of orbital elements and observational parameters for all the planets (and yes, for Pluto for old times sake) as well as information on the principle satellites are contained here.	Common Names Some of the most famous deep space objects are known by common names. For example, the huge stellar nursery in Orion is called the Great Nebula. Click here to see many of these objects by their common names.
Messier Objects The famous french comet hunter C. Messier kept a list of fuzzy objects which were sometimes mistaken for comets. Today many of the very most spectacular deep space galaxies and nebulae have Messier numbers from 1 to 110.	Cataloged Objects There are many thousands of other deep space objects which can be accessed by amateur equipment. These objects have the much less romantic designations of NGC [New Galactic Catalog] or IC [Index Catalog] followed by numbers.
Constellations This section provides a reference tables cross referencing the IAU symbol, the Latin nominative and genitive forms and an English equivalent of the recognized stellar constellations.	Life List We keep a list (although it tends to be out of date) of all the objects spotted through our Meade 16" LX200 SCT.