Caroline Herschel objects observed from my observatory

Caroline Herschel (1750–1848) was the first famous female astronomer. Though celebrated in her day for discovering eight comets, she started as a deep-sky observer. In fact, it was Caroline’s initial deep-sky discoveries that inspired her brother William Herschel to undertake the monumental sky survey that ultimately netted more than 2,000 new galaxies, star clusters, and nebulae.

For many years controversy abounded with which objects belong to Caroline and not her brother William. Michael Hoskin in his 2005 Article in Journal for the History of Astronomy finally provides us with a defininative list of Caroline’s deepsky observations.

Stephen James O’Meara comes to the rescue again, with an appendix in his Book Hidden Treasures – one of his Deep Sky Companion series, which contains Michael Hoskins adapted list and is required reading for anyone wanting to know more about Carolines discoveries.

Objects that I have made at least one observation is given in the ‘Observations’ column.

I made my final observation of all the Caroline Herschel objects on the 7, January 2024, so this observing programme is now complete.