HISTORY

Around A.D. 150, Claudius Ptolemaeus (Ptolemy) recorded, in books VII-VIII of his Almagest, five stars that appeared nebulous. He also noted a region of nebulosity between the Constellations Ursa Major and Leo that was not associated with any star. The first true nebula, as distinct from a star cluster, was mentioned by the Arabic/Muslim astronomer, Abd al-Rahman al Sufi,in his Book of Fixed Stars (964). He noted "a little cloud" where the Andromeda Galaxy is located. He also cataloged the Omicron Volerum star cluster as a "nebulous star" and other nebulous objects, such as Brocchi's Cluster. The supernova that created the Crab Nebula,the SN 1054, was observed by Arabic and Chinese astronomer in 1054. 

 On November 26, 1610 Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc discovered the Orion Nebula using a telescope.This nebula was also observed by Johann Baptist Cysat in 1618. However, the firt detailed study of the Orion Nebula wouldn't be performed until 1659 by Christian Huvgen, who also believed himself to be the first person to discovered this nebulosity.

 

 In 1715, Edmund Halley published a list of six nebulae. This number steadily increased during the century, wiht Jean-Philippe de Cheseaux compiling a list of 20 in 1746. From 1746-53, Nicolas Louis de Lacaille cataloged 42 nebulae from the Cape of Good Hope, with most of them being previously unknown Charles Messier then compiled a catalog of 103 "nebulae" by 1781; his interest was detecting comets, and these were object might be mistaken for them.