A comet's tails in the predawn sky are illustrated in this illustration. In 1743 and 1744, it was certainly a great comet. It was a fire in the sky.

As it swung around the sun at perihelion, the comet's tail split into six clearly defined rays, which was already unusual for a comet. The comet's tails were bright and visible in the morning when its head was hidden below the horizon. They looked like a 'fan' reaching up into the sky.

There could be one or two much wider tails on the comet, but areas were darkened by thick dust, which is why the comet gave this appearance. According to astronomers around the globe, the comet made a crackling noise. This was a very strange sin, according to court astronomers in China.

The not-great young Catherine was observing the culprit as she was traveling to Russia to get married. It appears she considered the whole thing as part of her declaration of future greatness, which, of course, she did.

Messier saw the comet in France, and it seems to have sparked him into astronomy rather than the courtroom career he had originally envisioned. In addition to being the official astronomer for the French Navy and the dirty rich, Messier acquired a position as an assistant to Joseph Nicolas Delisle.

Delisle's observatory was newly built, and Messier soon settled in. The young scientist made numerous discoveries over the next decade, gaining a senior government position as well as a series of honors and memberships. 

He did well at destroying distant comets before other astronomers were able to write their names on the approaching snowball, as they have remained a subject of special interest to Messier.

Messier was even given a very noteworthy nickname by King Louis XV, 'Mongoose Comets', which should be engraved on your tombstone if you may. As for Messier's later work, it's his catalog of nebulae, galaxies, and star clusters that he is better known for.

Initially, Messier's footnotes and marginalia were used to compile a list of 45 miserable beings. His final list, made up of items from his footnotes and marginals, contained 110 miserable beings.

A cluster known as Messier 13 is sometimes referred to as the Great Globular Cluster of Hercules, the Hercules Globular Cluster, or the Hercules Globular Cluster. Even though Messier put it in the catalog, he was not the first to discover M13. Rather, Edmund Halley encountered him in 1714.

Despite having hundreds of thousands of stars, M13 is not a galaxy. It is located about 22,500 light-years from Earth but is one of many such blobs orbiting the Milky Way. To find it, look for the constellation Hercules. But bring a telescope.

There are only about 135 stars within 50 light-years of Earth. M13 is about 100 times denser than its neighboring regions around Earth. It might be interesting to see a sky as big as a neighbor's. Occasionally, two pairs of stars in M13 merge into a short-lived blue-white giant.

In science fiction novels, the spherical Hercules cluster has been a recurring theme. They may have chosen M13 as a target in 1974 when SETI personnel were at the runaway but not forgotten Arecibo Telescope.

A very good receiver will allow someone out there to receive mail in about 22,450 years. In this feature, I show several images taken on the Vespera telescope. As usual, some of you will do much better. But perhaps not better than this.

'In a televised broadcast beginning at 10:30 a.m. ET on Tuesday, July 12, NASA, the European Space Agency, and the Canadian Space Agency will release the first full-color images and spectroscopy data from the James Webb Space Telescope.