Charles Messier's Catalog of Nebulae and Star Clusters

[Swede]

Messier never published a further upgrade, although he has expressed plans to do so, e.g. in the "Connaissance des Tems" for 1801 (Messier 1798). However, he made extensive use of his personal copy of the catalog, adding the missing two positions for M102 and M103, and the new entry M104. Positions are also given, in his personal notes, for two objects mentioned with M97 (they were later assigned M108 and M109). For M109, a second different position is given in handwriting directly after the catalog entry for M97. Other additional objects have been added from a letter by Pierre Méchain (Méchain 1783, Méchain 1784), who had probably planned to include them in a later revision which never occurred, and a publication by Messier (Messier 1798a).

http://seds.org/MESSIER/xtra/history/m-cat.html#M3

[NMDemDist2]

1. Hubby loves his Messier objects

his favs are M-45, 42 and 13 and especially M-37