| Description | I'm pretty sure I don't like the Caldwell Catalog. Sure, there are some pretty objects on it. But it lacks the wacky unpredictability of the Messier Catalog, where you can be looking at one of the most astonishingly beautiful galaxies in creation, and then switch to a truly dumb little cluster on the next. That's an accident of its ancient origins in the mid-18th century when Messier or Méchain often could see nothing more than a barely perceptible smudge. The truth is, they had no idea what their objects looked like. The Caldwell Catolog also lacks the honesty of Arp's Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies, which has a unifying theme (peculiarity). And Arp didn't care if the galaxies were pretty, or "big enough"... he was just trying to point out stuff that required explanation. Patrick Caldwell Moore was an avid amateur, and educator, who decided in the 1980s to pick the next 110 prettiest objects (a conscious homage to Messier). He had to use his middle name because he wanted a one-letter prefix, and M was taken. As lovely as this galaxy is, it seems like Galaxy Porn to me. That said, I wanted to give it more integration time, but clouds took over. |
