Quote:
Originally Posted by Argonavis
I think we need a counter-revolution and insist that the Hartung numbers be quoted for all deep sky objects when referring to them.  |
I'm sure that Hartung never had the flair for publicity that Moore did. He probably couldn't foresee how out of hand it would all get thanks to S&T, Meade and Celestron, but I think he would have been quite pleased. I just reread the original article in December 1995 Sky and Telescope and he did have a reasonable rationale - a list of bright DSOs without Messier numbers covering both hemispheres. Moore actually only wrote a couple of paragraphs followed by the listing. The rest of the article is by S & T staff. He did coin the C number concept though.
One of the good things about the list is that it's in order of descending declination so all we have to do is start at the back.