This was the first working reflecting telescope. Other designers proved unable to grind mirrors with a regular curvature, so the reflector remained largely a curiosity until the mid-18th century ...

As astronomers scanned the night sky with larger telescopes, they were intrigued by fuzzy patches of light called nebulae. Toward the end of the 18th century, astronomer William Herschel used star ...

The majority opinion among astronomers was that everything our telescopes could see was organized ... It was entry 31 in Charles Messier's 18th century catalog of interesting fuzzy objects ...