De Cheseaux's List of 21 "Nebulae"

The Swiss astronomer and mathematician Philippe Loys de Cheseaux (1718-51) became known because of his discovery and observations of the famous comet of December 1743 to March 1744, which became very brilliant, exposed six tails, and also impressed 13-year-old Charles Messier in his Lorrainian hometown.

About in 1746, he also observed several clusters and "nebulous stars", and compiled a catalog of their positions. According to Kenneth Glyn Jones, 8 of them were original discoveries: IC 4665 (No. 2, maybe doubty), NGC 6633 (No. 3), M16 (No. 4), M25 (No. 5), M35 (No. 12, but this one might have seen before by John Bevis in England), M71 (No. 13), M4 (No. 19), and M17 (No. 20). Moreover, he independently re-discovered M6 (No. 1), NGC 6231 (No. 9, together with stars z1 and z2 Scorpii) and M22 (No. 17).

De Cheseaux's list was given to Reaumur, who presented it to the French Academy of Sciences on August 6, 1746, but it was not otherwise published. It was investigated by M.G. Bigourdan in 1884 and became more wellknown only then.

We have a translation of De Cheseaux's original list online.

A list of identifications of De Cheseaux's objects follows:

de Cheseaux    Messier/NGC/IC      Remarks

  No.  1       M 6                 (!)
  No.  2       IC 4665 ?            ! 
  No.  3       NGC 6633             !
  No.  4       M16                  !
  No.  5       M25                  !
  No.  6       NGC 869, h Per
  No.  7       NGC 884, Chi Per
  No.  8       M 8
  No.  9       NGC 6231+z1,z2 Sco  (!)
  No. 10       M 7
  No. 11       M44
  No. 12       M35                  !?
  No. 13       M71                  !
  No. 14       M11
  No. 15       M31
  No. 16       M42
  No. 17       M22                 (!)
  No. 18       NGC 5139, Omega Cen
  No. 19       M 4                  !
  No. 20       M17                  ! 
  No. 21      [M13] - not seen

An exclamation mark notes an original discovery, if in parentheses, an independent rediscovery. The discovery of the non-Messier objects NGC 6633 and IC 4665 is mentioned in the Webb Society Deep-Sky Observer's Handbook, Volume 3 (Open and Globular Clusters) p. 3. De Cheseaux lists M13 with the remark he had not yet found it.

Besides observing nebulous patches in the sky, de Cheseaux was probably the first to formulate Olbers' paradox.

History of the Discovery of the Deepsky Objects

More Deepsky Catalogs and Observing Lists

Some other historical catalogs

De Cheseaux's original list (newly translated as Fredi de Maria's former Version seems to be unavailable)

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

Last Modification: 15 Apr 2000, 23:25 MET