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On This Day In History: Southern Pinwheel Galaxy Catalogued – On Feb 17, 1781

MessageToEagle.com –  On February 17, 1781, Charles Messier included the Southern Pinwheel Galaxy also known as M83 in his catalogue.

The Southern Pinwheel Galaxy is a barred spiral galaxy approximately 14.7 million light-years distant in the eastern section of the largest constellation of all, Hydra.

It’s one of the closest and the finest barred spirals in the sky.

Spiral Galaxy M83: The Southern Pinwheel. Image Credit: NASA, ESA, Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA), and W. P. Blair (JHU) et al.

Compared to other galaxies, Southern Pinwheel Galaxy is a relatively luminous galaxy with an integrated visual magnitude of 7.6.

M83 is visible with 7×50 or 10×50 binoculars, appearing under dark skies as a patch of light with a brighter center.

The Southern Pinwheel Galaxy was discovered by the French astronomer Nicolas Louis de Lacaille in 1751-1752, at the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa.

Lacaille described it as a “small nebula, shapeless.”

It is one of twelve galaxies included in Charles Messier’s Catalog of deep sky objects.

First version of this article was originally published on February 17, 2016.

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References:

Messier Objects

NASA

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