UNE is the catalogue of deep sky objects visible with unaided eye. It includes ordinary deep sky object with catalogue designations, star clusters, nebulae and even some galaxies. There are also some very large stellar associations, e.g. Ursa Major and Antares moving clusters and several Milky Way features.

The catalogue includes the main catalogue and the appendix of suspected naked eye objects. The confirmed observation of the suspected object raises it to the main catalogue and gives it the UNE designation.

History

The first versions of the catalogue, with name Veikko's Naked Eye Catalogue of Deep Sky Objects (VNE), were compiled by Veikko Mäkelä already in early 1990s. It had 51 objects and 40 suspected objects.

Later in the beginning of the new millennium, Jarmo Moilanen joined to compile the catalogue and it got the name UNE catalogue, Ursa Naked Eye catalogue of Deep Sky Objects. Ursa stands on Ursa Astronomical Association, the compilers' astronomical association.

Like many other projects, it has lasted for a long time. The version 1.1 of VNE was available as packed text files in ftp.funet.fi since 1995. In 2008, The UNE Catalogue got its first modern network version. It was moved to the Ursa wiki system thereafter. Due to the scheduled discontinuation of Ursa wikis in early 2024, the catalogue is now accessible at the website of the Finnish Deep Sky Observing Group.

Numbering scheme