Charles Messier

On November 26, 1770, Charles Messier married Marie-Françoise de Vermauchampt. They had met fifteen years ago at Collége de France. Initially they put up with the Delisles. But later on October 31, 1771, they set up their home in the Hôtel de Cluny, where the Observatory was located.

Their only son, Antoine-Charles, was born on March 15, 1772. Unfortunately, his wife died on March 23, just eight days after giving birth. Three days later, on March 26, the child too passed away.

Towards the end of his life Charles Messier suffered from decreasing eyesight. In 1815, he had a stroke which left him partially paralyzed. Later he recovered partially, but leading day-to-day life soon became progressively difficult.

Charles Messier was born on 26 June 1730 in Badonviller, a commune located in the Meurthe-et-Moselle department of northeastern France. At that time, it was a part of the Principality of Salm, an independent state, located between the Duchy of Lorraine and the Kingdom of France.

His father, Nicolas Messier, was a court usher in the service of the administration of Salm. He and his wife Françoise B. Grandblaise had twelve offspring; Charles, born tenth, was one of their six surviving children.

Among his surviving siblings, three brothers, Hyacinthe, Claude and Nicolas-François were elder to him while another brother named Joseph and a sister named Barbe were younger. He never knew the other six, who died young.

In 1741, Nicolas Messier died and with that, the family’s financial position took a downward turn. Shortly after this, another accident befell the family. Charles, while playing around at home, fell out of the window and broke his thigh bones.

By then, twenty-four year old Hyacinthe had taken charge of the household. He now took Charles out of school. For the next eight years, he studied with his eldest brother. It was during this period that he developed his sense of observation, which would one day help him to become a renowned astronomer.

In 1751, the Princes of Salm lost control of Badonviller. Hyacinthe, remaining loyal to his old masters, decided to leave Badonviller for Senones. Charles, by then twenty-one years old, was offered two positions in Paris.

One was with a curator of one of the many palaces in the city and the other was with Joseph Nicolas Delisle, an astronomer with the French Navy. Hyacinthe, believing that the second position offered better prospects, accepted it for Charles.

Accordingly on September 23, 1751, Charles Messier left Badonviller, arriving in Paris on October 2. By then, Delisle had built his own observatory at Cluny, and was also attached to the Collége Royal de France at Paris. Charles now began to live in Delisle’s apartment at Collége Royal.

His first job was to copy a large map of China. For that, he was assigned space in an unheated large hall at the College. At the same time, he also visited Delisle’s observatory, where he was introduced to the various instruments and was instructed to keep records of his observations.

Thus Charles Messier began his career as a draftsman and a record-keeper, but soon turned into a keen observer. His first observation, on Mercury transit, was dated 6 May 1753.

In 1754, Messier was employed as a Depot Clerk of the Navy. Concurrently, he continued to study elementary astronomy with Delisle, who convinced him about the usefulness of measuring exact positions of the observations. Such precise measurement later became the hallmark of his catalogue.

Sometime in 1757, Messier stared looking for Halley’s Comet, which its discoverer had predicted would reappear in 1758. In the course of this search, he came across a number of fixed diffused celestial objects that looked similar to a comet. The first among them was a dwarfed companion of the Great Andromeda Galaxy.

Then on August 14, 1758, he discovered another comet and carefully observed it till November 2, 1758. Unfortunately for him, this comet had already been discovered by De la Nux on May 26, 1758, and hence had been named C/1758 K1 De la Nux.

But on August 28, 1758, while he was observing C/1758 K1 De la Nux, he discovered another comet-like patch in Taurus. Since it was not moving he came to the conclusion that it was not a comet, but a nebula. He then started measuring its position, finishing the task by September 12, 1758.