M76 is one of the fainter Messier objects. As it was originally suspected to be a double nebula with two components in contact, it was given two NGC numbers.

While the bright part of the nebula is about 65 arc seconds in diameter, this nebula is surrounded by a faint halo covering a region of 290 arc seconds in diameter. This material was probably ejected in the form of stellar winds from the central star when it was still in the Red Giant phase of evolution. Today the central star is of magnitude 16.6 and a high temperature of some 60,000 Kelvin, which will probably cool down as a white dwarf over the coming tens of billions of years.

As usual for planetary nebulae, M76's visual magnitude is a much brighter 10.1. This is due to the fact that most visual light is emitted in one spectral line, the green 5007 Angstrom forbidden line of doubly ionized oxygen.

M77 is a conspicuous face-on spiral galaxy in Cetus and one of the largest galaxies in Messier's catalog. The bright area measures about 120,000 light years, and the faint but sill visible extensions for nearly 170,000 light years. This magnificient spiral galaxy with broad structured arms, displays a young stellar region in the inner region and a domination of older smoooth yellow stars away from the centre.

Investigations of the inner disk's rotational velocities found the inner disk to be inclined against the line of sight by 51 degrees. The inner disk's mass is estimated at 27 billion solar masses, while the total mass of this galaxy must be of the order of 1 trillion solar masses.

M77 is the dominating member of a small physical group of galaxies, which includes NGC 1055, a dusty edge-on spiral galaxy shown top right in the lower image. (M77 is lower left).

M78 is a bright reflection nebula located close to the celestial equator and about four degrees east of Mintaka, the westernmost star in Orion's belt. Like all reflection nebulae, M78 is seen because it scatters light from another source, usually nearby stars.

In the lower image an eerie blue glow and ominous columns of dark dust highlight M78 and other bright reflection nebula in the constellation of Orion. The dark filamentary dust not only absorbs light, but also reflects the light of several bright blue stars that formed recently in the nebula. Of the two reflection nebulas pictured above, the more famous nebula is M78 is shown towards the top, while NGC 2071 can be seen towards the lower left. The same type of scattering that colors the daytime sky further enhances the blue color. M78 is about five light years across and visible through a small telescope. Being 1,600 light years away, it appears as it was a that time. M78 belongs to the larger Orion Molecular Cloud Complex that contains the Great Nebula in Orion and the Horsehead Nebula.

The nebula can be glimpsed with binoculars in an exceptional dark sky, or through a 4.5-inch scope in less than ideal conditions. Observers using larger instruments may see M78 as comet-shaped, with a broad tail of material arcing away from two 10th magnitude stars in the head.

Careful observation will show NGC 2071, from the lower image, in the same eyepiece field just a few arcminutes away from M78. Though not likely to be seen through binoculars, this companion nebula is detectable in 3 to 4-inch telescopes as a faint glow northeast of M78.

As a reflection nebula, M78 is a cloud of interstellar dust which shines in the reflected and scattered light of bright blue (early B-type) stars, among them the brightest, HD 38563A, and second-brightest HDE 38563B, both of about 10th visual apparent magnitude. The nature of M78 as a reflection nebula was discovered by Vesto M. Slipher of Lowell Observatory in 1919 (Slipher 1919), by the investigation of its spectrum: M78 exhibits a continuous spectrum, which resembles that of the bright stars enlightening it. At its distance, M78 measures almost 4 light years in extension.

M79 is a globular cluster of typical size and mass, located in the constellation of Lepus (the Hare). This is an unusual location for a globular cluster which typically accumulate around the galactic center. M79 is little over 40,000 light years from us and about 60,000 light years from the galactic center.

M79 contains approximately 90,000 stars, many of which are similar in mass, temperature and color to the Sun. The cluster also contains many larger, cooler stars known as red giants.

M79's apparent diameter of 8.7 minutes of arc corresponds to a linear extension of over 100 light years. The cluster is slightly elliptical, extended at position angle 45 deg, and has only 7 known variables. It is receding at about 200 km/sec.

M80 has a 10' angular diameter corresponding roughly to 95 light years linear dimension at its distance of 32,600 light years. Its appearance resembles that of a faint comet without tail. This dense stellar swarm contains several 100,000s of stars, held together by their mutual gravitational attraction and is one of the densest globulars in our Milky Way Galaxy. Hubble discovered M80 to also contain a large number of so-called "Blue Stragglers" in its core, about twice as much as any other globular investigated with the Hubble Telescope. These stars are blue and bright stars which appear near the main-sequence of the Hertzsprung-Russell diagramm, and thus appear more massive and younger than the globular clusters age. The reason is very probably that these stars lost their cooler envelopes in close encounters with other stars. Their large number in M80 indicates an exceptionally high stellar collision rate in the core of this globular cluster.

Though not very conspicuous, M80 can be located quite easily as it is situated almost exactly half-way between Antares (Alpha Scorpii) and Graffias (Beta Scorpii), just below the declination parallel of Dschubba (Delta Scorpii). It is seen as a bright but small, round ball with brighter nucleus; its surface brightness decreases to the outer regions. Moderate-sized telescopes will show M80 as a mottled, nebulous object of size 3-5 arc mins poorly resolved. Better resolution into stars requires larger aperture telescopes.