| Home | Articles | Guide to Observing | Tour of the Constellations | Book Reviews |
Corona Borealis
Meteor Showers
Hercules, hero of Greek mythology, slayer of the Hydra, cleaner of the Augean stables, and played by Steve Reeves in countless movies, is in the neighborhood of Bootes and Corona Borealis. Hercules has few bright stars and can be a bit difficult to pick out.
Charles Messier was a French astronomer active in the latter part of the 18th century. The hot item for astronomers during that period was comets and like many others, Messier was busy trying to discover new ones. A new comet appears as a fuzzy star that moves from night to night. While conducting his search, Messier kept on finding other fuzzy objects that turned out not to be comets. He decided that it would be a good idea to make a list of such annoying objects so that observers would not be lead into thinking that they discovered something important like a new comet.
Messier's list eventually grew to 103 objects which are designated by the letter M to honor him. These annoyances have turned out to be some of the most interesting objects in the sky.
Hercules contains one of the most prominent of the Messier objects - M13 - a globular cluster consisting of several hundred thousand stars, 25,000 light years away from us. It is possible under ideal conditions to see it with the naked eye, but you will have much better luck with binoculars or a telescope.