This episode of Astronomy Cast is brought to you by Swinburne Astronomy Online, the world's longest running online astronomy degree program.

Visit astronomy.swin.edu.au for more information.

Astronomy Cast Episode 251 from Monday, February 6, 2012. Messier Objects.

Welcome to Astronomy Cast, our weekly facts-based journey through the cosmos, where we help you understand not only what we know, but how we know what we know.

My name is Fraser Cain, I'm the publisher of University and with me is Dr. Pamela Gay, a professor at Southern Illinois University, Evansville.

At Pamela, how are you doing?

I'm doing well, how are you doing Fraser?

I'm doing really well, the weather is starting to improve, things are getting nice and sunny, it's good.

Spring in January is just plain wrong, spring in February is still mostly wrong, but yeah, I have to admit my bulbs are starting to come up, so this is a very odd year.

That's good. All right, so have you ever looked into the sky and noticed a fuzzy blob?

That's a Messier Object, carefully cataloged by Charles Messier to make it easier to find comments.

We'll learn about the history of the catalog, Messier's criteria and some of the prominent objects that you might see.

All right, Pamela.

I've done this, I've rediscovered many of the Messier Objects.

Eighth Light is an agile software development company. They craft beautiful applications that are durable and reliable.

Eighth Light provides discipline software leadership on demand and shares its expertise to make your project better.

For more information, visit them online at www.eighthlight.com.

Just remember, that's www.thedigit8thlyght.com, drop them a note.

Eighth Light, software is their craft.

All right, Pamela, so I've done this, I've rediscovered many of the Messier Objects on my own.

I used to do that, I would go outside, look up in a really dark sky.

When I grew up, we had just beautiful dark skies, great big Milky Way and especially in winter, the sky just pops.

...