Caught myself mislabeling Andromeda photos for weeks before I noticed

I've been posting pictures I took of the Andromeda Galaxy and kept calling it Messier 31 like everyone does. Then last month I saw a post from a guy who actually checked the historical catalogs and realized that Messier 31 is technically just the bright core area, not the whole galaxy spread. Messier himself only saw a fuzzy patch with his small scope in the 1700s. So my shots from a dark site in West Texas showing all the dust lanes and satellite galaxies are really just "Andromeda" not M31. I feel dumb for parroting that for like 3 years. Has anyone else been accidentally calling their deep sky objects by the wrong catalog numbers?

3 comments

3 Comments

ellioth3724d ago

Yeah man, I did the same thing with M42 for like a year before I learned it's just the Trapezium cluster area.

spencer_park2623d agoMost Upvoted

Spent a whole winter on the Flame nebula before realizing it was just Alnitak's glow.

taylorshah23d ago

You ever spend like 3 months imaging the same small patch of sky thinking you nailed the whole nebula? I finally figured it out when I stacked a bunch of subs and saw nothing but those 4 bright stars lol. Now I just make sure to frame the whole running man area so I don't waste a clear night.