Flammarion and Messier's Personal Copy of his Catalog

Camille Flammarion was lucky to find and obtain Messier's personal copy of his catalog of nebulae and star clusters, together with personal observing notes, in 1877. He reports on this in introductory notes in his article on Messier's catalog of 1917 (Flammarion 1917):

"It is now about 40 of years ago - in 1877, precisely - when I published the first edition of Terres de Ciel at the academic Library of Didier, at the quay Grand-Augustins, I still had time to sauter sometimes for half an hour along the quays, and notably to stay in front of the boxes the libraries fully filled, opposite of the Institute, where I had been able to a long time before (1858 to 1862), the old yearbooks of the Bureau des Longitudes [Bureau of Longitudes], since their origin in 1795, at a price of about ten to twenty centimes; and I had the lucky chance to discover, between the old antiques, the manuscript of the astronomer Messier, containing his cataloged discoveries of 103 nebulae and star clusters, destinated for the Connaissance des Temps of 1783 and 1784, with his detailed remarks on each observation."

Reference:

Flammarion, Camille, 1917. Nébuleuses et Amas d'Étoiles de Messier. L'Astronomie. Revue de la Societé Astronomique de France, November 1917. P. 385-400, here p. 385-386.
Thanks to Jean-Paul Philbert for providing me with a copy of this reference!

Hartmut Frommert (spider@seds.org)
Christine Kronberg (smil@lrz.uni-muenchen.de)

Last Modification: 24 Jun 2001, 11:45 MET