| Description | Caldwell picked some gorgeous objects, and this is one of them. That said, I miss 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 Catalog also lacks a unifying theme, unlike Arp's Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies (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 109 prettiest objects (a conscious homage to Messier). I've learned that his choices are sometimes subtle, but never "dumb". |
