Charles Messier's Grave Decoration Project - Nov 2024 Update
Updated: Nov 13
We have a crazy project in mind... but it is only achievable with your help!
[The campaign for funds is now CLOSED. If you still want to participate, you can do so by clicking HERE. Just be sure to tell us it is for the project so we can credit you in the list of backers.]
Live Updates:
November 2024 - The grave looks awesome - A new plaque has appeared!
December 2022 - Wrapping up the year - Decorations are going strong!
June 2022 - Added a custom plaque.
June 2022 - The first cleaning and decoration took place this month! Scroll down to see the before and after pictures!
We have reached the amount required for INITIAL CLEANING! 🥳
We have reached the amount required for the grave to be decorated for ONE YEAR! 🥳
We have reached the amount required for the grave to be decorated for FIVE YEARS! 🥳
We have reached the amount required for the grave to be decorated for TEN YEARS! 🥳
We have reached the amount required for the grave to be decorated for TWENTY-FIVE YEARS! 🥳
The campaign for funds is now closed! Thank you, everyone! The grave will be cleaned and decorated for at least 25 years! Check this page again soon to see pics and videos of the cleaned grave.
Updates
Decorations are complete for 2024!
November 2024
2024 is coming to an end, and the last maintenance of the year has just been done!
As of November of 2024, Charles Messier's grave has a clean slab, while still keeping its antique look, and it is almost full of beautiful flowers!
One thing that surprised me when I saw the pictures for this month is that a second plaque has been added! As a reminder, we initially placed a gray plaque featuring text about Messier, along with his portrait and a telescope image. This new plaque is blue and has some text as well.
Thank you for Chris Stubblefield for visiting the cemetery again and sending me this close-up pic of the plaque!
Update: The person who placed the plaque is Geoffrey Jany. Thank you for doing this!
The text says:
"CHARLES MESSIER
Rédacteur du catalogue Messier. Premier astronome qui a répertorié le ciel profond dont il a numéroté 103 objets de son vivant avec 110 objets de nos jours.
Hommage du purisme de l'Astronomie.
Verhoeven culte Satiriste/Astro&puriste"
I've also noticed that keeping a couple of flowers on the grave regularly seems to inspire others to add their own. I wonder if the two large flowers on the other slab might be intended for Messier, as that grave seems unknown and never had any decorations in the past.
Thank you for reading this update, and we'll keep decorating until all the donations are used up. If you’d like to honor Charles Messier as well, you can contribute any amount by clicking HERE. Be sure to let us know it's for this project so we can include you on our list of backers.
Decorations are complete for 2022!
December 2022
2022 is a wrap! Charles Messier's grave has been cleaned in June, and was decorated three times so far. A plaque was added, and fresh flowers were displayed. As you can see on the latest picture below (December 2022), one extra flower was placed by a passerby, which is awesome to see! We hope that the regular decorations have an impact on making other people also place their own flowers on the grave.
Charles Messier's Grave - August 2022 (left) and December 2022 (right)
Did you recently visit the site? If so, be sure to add a little something to it and send us a picture!
We only receive pics of the grave quarterly from the decoration company, so we love to receive more at random from some of you going to see it. Here is an example from "Mountaineer Theatre" on Facebook. Thank you for taking this picture, it's nice to see that the grave looks beautiful!
We expect to have to ask the cleaning company to deep clean the grave again at some point soon before all the vines start to grow back, but we'll see how that goes!
Custom Plaque Added
June 2022
Just a few days after the company did the first cleaning and decoration work, my brother went to visit the cemetery and added a custom plaque for the grave that we designed and purchased a couple of months prior.
We wanted to get a nice plaque to inscribe the name of Charles Messier on it, as it is difficult to read on the actual grave headstone. We also added a short description explaining who Charles was, and at the very bottom a link to this page for anyone who would like to help with further decorations!
We weren't sure which plaque to get at first and asked you all on Instagram and Facebook to see which design you preferred. We went with your votes :)
Most people who voted for the bottom plaque said they liked the portrait of Charles Messier in the top right corner. Because of that, we went ahead and added a portrait to the top plaque before ordering it!
The plaque reads:
Original in French:
Charles Messier
Auteur du catalogue Messier,
regroupant 110 objets du ciel profond
observés depuis Paris.
Participez aux décorations:
https://www.galactic-hunter.com/messierdecorations
English Translation:
Charles Messier
Author of the Messier catalog
containing 110 deep-sky objects
observed from Paris
Participate in the decorations:
https://www.galactic-hunter.com/messierdecorations
Cleaning & Decorations started
June 2022
The first cleaning and decoration took place this month! You can see two pictures below.
On the left below is how we found the grave when we visited the cemetery, and on the right is what the grave looks like today!
As you can see, no more pesky mold, no more weeds, and an overall much cleaner look!
The updated picture was taken on a rainy day, so the water dripping on each side and the wet grave makes it look a bit rough, but it likely looks much better on a sunny day. 🌞
We hope that having flowers on the grave at all times will motivate others to also leave flowers for Charles Messier.
Original Post
We won't lie, we weren't sure if this would be a project worth doing or not. Why raise hundreds or thousands of dollars for someone who has been... dead... for more than 200 years?
Well, we asked you guys directly in our video below, and you seem to think it is a very nice idea! So let's give it a try and see how it goes :)
Short Summary
We are Antoine and Dalia Grelin, a couple doing astrophotography together under the dark skies of the Nevada desert. We started a website and YouTube Channel, “Galactic Hunter”, where we help beginner astrophotographers learn and get better at capturing deep sky objects. Galactic Hunter started because we wanted to share our journey to capture all 110 Messier objects.
Our biggest inspiration, astronomer Charles Messier, was one of the pillars in the astronomy world in the 18th century all the way to the beginning of the 19th century. Messier spent countless nights observing the night sky from his Paris rooftop, using what is considered today as very old and basic telescopes.
Staying up all night whenever the sky was clear, Charles Messier worked with an indescribable passion, looking through his instrument in the hopes of spotting never-seen-before space objects. Although Messier’s main goal was to locate comets, which he discovered 13 of, he truly made an impact on astronomy by cataloging the location of star clusters, nebulae, and galaxies.
The Messier Catalog, which lists 110 of the largest, brightest, and most impressive deep sky objects in the sky, (like the Andromeda Galaxy or the Orion Nebula) is today the first list of any kind that a beginner astronomer or astrophotographer consults when unsure of what to look for in the sky.
Without all of Charles Messier’s sleepless nights, we would likely never have such a perfect catalog to refer to this day.
We recently visited the Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris, France. This cemetery is the last resting place of some of the most famous artists, scientists, and political figures in the world. Many of the graves in the Père Lachaise cemetery are constantly showered with notes and flowers from all the fans visiting their idols.
Sadly, the grave of Charles Messier never receives that much love. When we found the tomb, we were shocked to discover how dirty and rusty it was. There were no flowers, no notes, just fungi and vines growing on the headstone. You also can barely read the name on the stone, and there is no way to decipher the message written near the base anymore. We have been impacted by Charles Messier so much in our lives, and feel like the old man deserves some love, 200+ years after his death.
In this campaign, we would like to raise some funds to restore Charles Messier’s grave close to its original state and hire a professional grave cleaning company to maintain and decorate the grave over the next century.
What We Need
Our goal is to have Charles Messier’s grave looking beautiful for the next 100 years.
Before being able to have the grave regularly maintained and embellished, we first need to have it professionally restored and deep cleaned.
The total cost to deep clean the grave is 680 dollars.
The deep cleaning consists of:
Mechanical cleaning of all surfaces [Not used as we do not want to change the antique aspect of the grave].
Removal of all plant matter
Degreasing
Anti-fungal treatment of the stone in order to remove fungi and lichens
Treatment of the cement borders to restore an aspect close to the original one. [Not used as we do not want to change the antique aspect of the grave].
Once this is done, the funds left will be used to maintain and decorate the grave on a regular basis (four times per year). The stone will be cleaned and fresh flowers will be placed each time. Our ultimate wish is to be able to maintain Messier’s grave for 100 years.
CLICK HERE to open the crowdfunding page.
The Impact
With your donations, Charles Messier’s grave will be clean, have flowers, and finally stand up to the graves of other famous people in the Père Lachaise Cemetery. Most importantly, it will be the ultimate "thank you" we can all make as the astronomy community to Charles Messier.
Here is how long we can keep the grave clean and decorated depending on the amount of support this campaign gets:
✅ $680 - One-Time Deep Cleaning. No regular maintaining.
✅ $1,105 - Charles Messier’s grave will be cleaned and decorated for ONE year.
✅ $2,805 - Charles Messier’s grave will be cleaned and decorated for FIVE years.
✅ $4,930 - Charles Messier’s grave will be cleaned and decorated for TEN years.
✅ $11,305 - Charles Messier’s grave will be cleaned and decorated for TWENTY-FIVE years.
$21,930 - Charles Messier’s grave will be cleaned and decorated for FIFTY years.
$43,180 - Charles Messier’s grave will be cleaned and decorated for ONE HUNDRED years.
🔭 Extra: $48,110 - Charles Messier's grave will be cleaned and decorated for 110 years. One year for each object Messier cataloged!
[The Project is now CLOSED. If you still want to participate in the hopes to reach more years, you can do so by clicking HERE. Just be sure to tell us it is for the project so we can credit you in the list of backers.]
Perks
As an additional thank you to people who want to donate, we'd like to feature your name on this project page for life!
BRONZE BACKER STAR
$100 or more
Steven Barnes
Nicolas Large
Mark Bahu
John A Day
Valentin Moingeon
Jakub Gajdos
Geoffrey S. Waldo
Nesher G. Asner
Aaron Keck
Tom Dinneen
David Collins
David McClintock
Dburman
Luther Laymon
Dustin Gibson
Ian Lauer
Kyle LeNeau
Jesse O'Neill-Oine
Trevor Jones
Chris Bynum
Samson Chiu
Astro Vino
Albert Carr
David Jenkins
Erik Dunnett
SILVER BACKER STAR
$500 or more
Georg Woeber
Steve Furminger
Marla Pinaire
Kelly Ottone
Paul Pilcher
Josh Kim
GOLD BACKER STAR
$1,000 or more
OurSky - OurSky matched each donation for the last few days of the campaign to ensure we reached at least 25 years. Thank you so much! Learn all about OurSky soon on our website!
Conclusion
If you have ever used the Messier catalog at any point in your life, please help us thank Charles and donate whatever amount you believe is right. If you cannot financially support this project, please contribute by getting the word out to your friends and other astronomy hobbyists!
[The Project is now CLOSED. If you still want to participate, you can do so by clicking HERE. Just be sure to tell us it is for the project so we can credit you in the list of backers.]
Note: We are doing this FOR Charles Messier. We do not earn any profit from this.
Clear Skies,
Antoine & Dalia Grelin
Galactic Hunter
I went in for $50. Thank you for spearheading this project.