This page contains a 400 entry long list of great and/or challenging deep sky objects. Here you will find both the original Astronomical League H400 list, and a revised version for observers at our 60°N latitude. Arild Moland has done the work in preparing the "Norwegian" H400 list. He has also had a hand in the text on this page.

Please note that observing any 400 of the Herschel's about 2500 objects will enable you to apply for the Astronomical League H400 certificate. We are in no way affiliated with AL.

Ten Highlights

There are many objects in the sky that deserve attention, and many of these are in the Herschel 400 list. And also many of the objects in the Herschel list could make it into this "top ten" list. Therefore this list is not meant as a listing of the ten best objects in the list, but merely as an introduction to what can be found in the H400 list. The objects here are picked for diversity, but also for being famous or fantastic objects. If you never intend to view all the objects in the catalog, then at least don't miss these objects!

• NGC 246: This planetary is huge and might be difficult to spot. But it looks great in this picture.
• NGC 1055: Together with the two nearby stars, this galaxy looks like a smiling (?) face. Take a look!
• NGC 1502: Many open clusters are obscure and maybe difficult to spot. This one however is clear as the day. It consists of stars of very different brightness, and that makes it beautiful, as you can see in this picture.
• NGC 2024: Dubbed rightfully the "Flame Nebula", this beautiful collection of gas and dust is in fact quite easily spotted in smaller apertures. I've tried it with a 5-inch SCT, and I was amazed to see its intricate structure of flame-like dark filaments.
• NGC 2264: This open cluster lies within a very nice nebula, which also houses the Cone Nebula and Trumpler 5. Can you see the fox to the right?
• NGC 2903: This galaxy is not so famous, but it's a gratifying object nonetheless. The spiral galaxy is quite easily spotted at the tip of Leo's head.
• NGC 4565: In contrast to the previous galaxy, this object is very famous among deep-sky observers. It is the most beautiful edge-on galaxy around. In a 16" telescope it looks just like in the picture! Don't miss it.
• NGC 5466: This globular cluster is not an easy object, mostly because of its low surface brightness. Lying only 5 degrees from a much greater brother, Messier 3, it is visible as a smaller fuzzy patch.
• NGC 6992: The Veil nebula is a large supernova remnant covering about 3 degrees of the sky. NGC 6992 is the north-western part of this difficult, yet beautiful nebula. We recommend nebula filter (eg. an OIII filter) for this one!
• NGC 7510: Yet another open cluster in this "Top Ten" from Herschel 400. This cluster is small, but when viewed through a telescope it really is nice. It looks just like an arrowhead, or triangle. It points in the general direction of Messier 52 (or away from it if you will). Very dense and easy to spot.

History

This list was compiled from an ascii-file originally made by The Astronomical League in the US, consisting of the 400 best objects viewable from North America in William Herschel's (picture) 2514 entry long list of deep sky objects (originally compiled by Lucian Kemble, Canada).

Arild Moland adapted it to Norwegian latitude (58°N-72°N). What in effect was done, was to remove all entries below -25 degrees in Declination and all (or most) objects in typical summer constellations like Sagittarius and Scorpius. These objects were replaced by other, presumably bright Herschel objects at magnitude 12 or brighter. These Herschel objects were found by browsing Burnham's Celestial Handbook. Some of the "new" objects may be (too?) elusive, and if you fail to see them, even in larger apertures, please let us know.

A HTML-version was then generated by Mikkel Steine (a computer science student at the time) using Simula, and we started the downloading from the Digitized Sky Survey (DSS). The goal with these pages was (and still is) to promote objects in the sky that are not the usual objects (like M42 or M31). We wanted to show that there are a lot of fantastic objects out there that really is worth pointing a telescope at. And if you have a telescope but don't know where to point it to make use of it, then this list is a great place to start. For the absolute beginners though it might be better to try the Messier objects first.

This page was awarded the Study Web Academic Excellence Award for being a "one of the best educational resources on the web." We're honored to receive such recognition of our work.

Arild Moland and Mikkel Steine