M107

Messier 107 or M107 , also known as NGC 6171, is a very loose globular cluster in a very mildly southern part of the sky close to the equator in Ophiuchus, and is the last such object in the Messier Catalogue.

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It was discovered by Pierre Méchain in April 1782, then independently by William Herschel in 1793. Herschel’s son, John, in his 1864 General Catalogue, described it as a “globular cluster of stars, large, very rich, very much compressed, round, well resolved, clearly consisting of stars”. It was not until 1947 that Helen Sawyer Hogg added it and three other objects found by Méchain to the modern Catalogue, the latter having contributed several of the suggested observation objects which Messier had verified and added. The cluster is to be found 2.5° south and slightly west of the star Zeta Ophiuchi.

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Keywords: M107, Messier, Ophiuchus, Globular Cluster