Charles Messier
From Slackerpedia Galactica
Charles Messier (1730-1817), a Frenchman, is best known for a list of deep sky objects that he himself had absolutely no interest in. Messier was looking for comets and kept getting confused by faint fuzzies, so he decided to create a list of these distractions so that he could avoid them. The list of Messier objects is now a major distraction for amateur astronomers everywhere.
Messier would probably turn in his grave if he knew that everyone remembered him for this list rather than the 40 comets that he actually discovered or co-discovered. Comets after all were his life's work, not that we really care.
Also see Messier Marathon.
