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Globular Star Clusters

History

The first globular cluster discovered was M22 in Sagittarius which was probably discovered by Abraham Ihle in 1665, although there are hints that Hevelius may have seen it previously. This discovery was followed by that of southern Omega Centauri (NGC 5139) by Edmond Halley on his 1677 journey to St. Helena, which had been known but classified as star since ancient times, that of M5 in Serpens Caput by Gottfried Kirch in 1702, M13 in Hercules again by Halley in 1714. De Chéseaux's list of 1746 contains, in addition, globular clusters M71 and M4, while J.-D. Maraldi discovered M15 and M2 in September of this year.

In summer 1782, before William Herschel startet his comprehensive deep sky survey with large telescopes, there were thus 33 globular clusters known.

Links

References


Hartmut Frommert [contact]
[SEDS]