Several catalogs are used by amateur or professional astronomers, in order to index sky objects. Click on a catalog name to filter objets per catalog :
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| Messier | The “catalog of diffuse deep-sky objects” is highly popular among amateur astronomers in Europe. It was compiled in 1774 by French astronomer Charles Messier to help comet hunters avoid confusing these permanent, fuzzy structures with comets, as their true nature was completely unknown at the time. Today, it features the most “classic” deep-sky targets accessible from the Northern Hemisphere (the full list is available on Wikipedia) |
| Caldwell | This catalog acts as a supplement to the Messier catalog for “classic” targets accessible to amateur astronomers, particularly by including prominent objects from the Southern Hemisphere. It was published in 1995 in Sky & Telescope by Patrick Moore Caldwell. This catalog is more widely popular among Anglo-Saxon amateurs (the full list is available onWikipedia) |
| NGC | The “New General Catalogue” originated from the “General Catalogue” initiated by William and later John Herschel. It is the most widely used catalog among amateur astronomers. It features 7,840 deep-sky objects, including many galaxies, compiled by John Dreyer up until 1888—the year the catalog was first published in the Memoirs of the Royal Astronomical Society. Its defining feature is that the objects are sorted by right ascension and declination (a list of prominent objects is available on Wikipedia) |
| IC | The “Index Catalogue”—also referred to as the “Index Catalogue of Nebulae” or “Index Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters of Stars”, IC I or IC II—serves as a supplement to the New General Catalogue. John Dreyer thus compiled over 5,386 objects up until 1908, bringing the combined NGC + IC total to more than 13,000 objects (a list of prominent objects is available on Wikipedia) |
| Abell | The Abell catalog of rich clusters of galaxies lists 4,073 rich galaxy clusters whose redshift values (z) are, by definition, between 0.02 and 0.2. Originally published by George Ogden Abell in 1958, it was expanded and completed with the help of Harold Corwin and Ronald Olowin up until 1989. The main elements are available on Wikipedia |
| Arp | L’Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies, aussi appelé communément atlas Arp, est un catalogue astronomique produit par l’astronome Halton Arp et recensant 338 galaxies particulières. L’atlas a été publié pour la première fois par le California Institute of Technology en 1966 (Liste sur Wikipedia) |
| Hickson | A Hickson Compact Group (or HCG) is a grouping of galaxies selected and published by Paul Hickson in 1982. These are most frequently galaxies undergoing gravitational interaction, which triggers distortions and starbursts (the full list is available on Wikipedia) |