History
The Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters of Stars was first published in 1786 by William Herschel in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. In 1789, he added another 1,000 entries., and finally another 500 in 1802, bring the total to 2,500 entries.
In 1864, the CN was expanded into the General Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters and Clusters of Stars (GC) by John Herschel (William's son). The GC contained 5,079 entries. Later, a complementary edition of the catalog was published posthumously as the General Catalogue of 10,300 Multiple and Double Stars.
In 1878, John Louis Emil Dreyer published a supplement to the General Catalogue. In 1886, he suggested building a second supplement to the General Catalogue, but the Royal Astronomical Society asked Dreyer to compile a new version instead. This led to the publication of the New General Catalogue (NGC) in 1888, and it's two expansions, the Index Catalogues (IC), in 1895 and 1908.
Read more about this topic: Catalogue Of Nebulae
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