The icon shows the 4-star system M73.
Although Messier's catalog was intended to contain only nebulous objects which may be taken for comets, and which we today have found to be clusters, nebulae, or galaxies, and not binary or multiple stars which hardly fall in this category, two have found their way into the Messier catalog: M40 and M73. These entries both were more positional notations, in the case of M40 for a mistake of Hevelius who had reported a nonexistent nebula, and in the case of M73 because Messeier had measured its position together with that of M72.
Last Modification: 25 Jan 1998, 14:50 MET