🗺️ Sky map of imaging targets
2852 Messier, Caldwell and NGC/IC objects on an all-sky map (colors show the type). The 3,786 small IC objects, 1,779 LDN dark nebulae, 313 Sharpless (Sh2) objects and 72 Abell planetary nebulae appear when you choose them in the catalog filter below. Tap a marker to see a sky-survey thumbnail and a link to its page.
Data sources and licenses
- All-sky background: NASA SVS "Deep Star Maps 2020" (made from 1.7 billion stars in Hipparcos-2, Tycho-2 and Gaia DR2; public domain). Mirrored left–right to match this site's orientation.
- Stars and constellation lines: d3-celestial (Olaf Frohn, BSD 3-Clause License). Star data from XHIP (Extended Hipparcos Compilation).
- Object thumbnails: NASA SkyView (cutouts of DSS survey images).
- Object catalog (coordinates, magnitudes, etc.): the same data as the object catalog (Messier, Caldwell, OpenNGC).
- LDN dark nebulae: the Lynds (1962) catalog (VizieR VII/7A, CDS Strasbourg). Markers are at the center; size is the diameter of a circle of equal area.
- Sharpless objects (Sh2): the Sharpless (1959) catalog (VizieR VII/20, CDS Strasbourg). Positions converted from equinox 1900.
- Abell planetary nebulae: the Strasbourg-ESO Catalogue of Galactic Planetary Nebulae (VizieR V/84, CDS Strasbourg).