Double Cluster - History

History

Hipparchus, a Greek astronomer, cataloged the object (a patch of light in Perseus) as early as 130 B.C. However, the true nature of the Double Cluster wasn’t discovered until the invention of the telescope many centuries later. In the early 19th century William Herschel was the first to recognize the object as two separate clusters. The Double Cluster is not included in Messier's catalog, but is included in the Caldwell catalogue of popular deep-sky objects not in Messier.

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