Who was incorrectly credited for the discovery of the Andromeda Galaxy and in what year was this? In what year was the galaxy actually discovered and by whom?

Brainyblonde

This is what NASA says Messier, Charles: While hunting for comets in the skies above France, 18th century astronomer Charles Messier made a list of the positions of about 100 fuzzy, diffuse looking objects which appeared at fixed positions in the sky. Although these objects looked like comets, Messier knew that since they did not move with respect to the background stars they could not be the undiscovered comets he was searching for. These objects are now well known to modern astronomers to be among the brightest and most striking gaseous nebulae, star clusters, and galaxies. Objects on Messier's list are still referred to by their "Messier number". For example the Andromeda Galaxy, the 31st object on the list, is known as M31. http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/lib/glossary.html#messier This is what Wikipedia says The earliest recorded observation of the Andromeda Galaxy was in 964 by the Persian astronomer 'Abd Al-Rahman Al Sufi, who described it as a "small cloud". The first description of the object based on telescopic observation was given by Simon Marius (1612). In 1764, Charles Messier catalogued it as object M31 and incorrectly credited Simon Marius as the discoverer, unaware of Al Sufi's earlier work. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andromeda_Galaxy Sep 24 06, 2:24 PM