The Herschel 400 catalogue is a subset of William Herschel's original Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters of Stars, selected by Brenda F. Guzman (Branchett), Lydel Guzman, Paul Jones, James Morris, Peggy Taylor and Sara Saey of the Ancient City Astronomy Club in St. Augustine, Florida, United States c. 1980. They decided to generate the list after reading a letter published in Sky & Telescope by James Mullaney of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. In this letter Mr. Mullaney suggested that William Herschel's original catalogue of 2,500 objects would be an excellent basis for deep sky object selection for amateur astronomers looking for a challenge after completing the Messier Catalogue. The Herschel 400 is a subset of John Herschel's General Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters published in 1864 of 5,000 objects, and hence also of the New General Catalogue. The catalogue forms the basis of the Astronomical League's Herschel 400 club. In 1997, another subset of 400 Herschel objects was selected by the Rose City Astronomers of Portland, Oregon as the Herschel II list, which forms the basis of the Astronomical League's Herschel II Program.

Basic facts

Distribution of Herschel 400 objects

Herschel 400 objects that are also Messier objects

The Herschel 400 contains 17 objects that are part of the Messier catalogue:

Herschel 400 objects that are also Caldwell objects

The Herschel 400 catalogue pre-dates the Caldwell catalogue by about 15 years. The Caldwell catalogue contains 44 objects that are members of the Herschel 400:

Number of objects by type in the Herschel 400

Number of Herschel 400 objects in each constellation

Herschel 400 objects

Key

1–100

101–200

201–300

301–400