Sometimes It's OK to Cheat
By
Janet E Rush
Posted: 2023-03-21T22:15:56Z
Monday, March 20 was looking like a pretty good night for observing, and a respectable contingent of visual observers (9 telescopes, 12 people) gathered at Blue Mountain Vista Observatory. The assemblage included two 24" dobs and an array of other substantial instruments, and the owners of the big dobs very generously shared their views.
This night coincided with acceptable timing for an attempted (partial) Messier Marathon! Messier Marathons (that is, viewing all of the Messier objects in a single night) can occur generally between mid-March and early April, and are best accomplished at about 20 degrees north latitude. At our unfavorable latitude, theoretically the best nights to complete the full Marathon are between March 29 and April 1. Of course, moonless nights are also required to give the best chance of seeing the dimmer objects, so moonless March 20 was a compromise date. Running the Messier Marathon requires an all-nighter, and the objects must be viewed in a specific order to catch them all. The limiting objects are reportedly the faint galaxy M74, which needs to be about 5 degrees high to be seen in nautical twilight from a very dark location, and M30, which needs to be 2 degrees above the horizon in order to be viewed during nautical dawn. For the purists, a classic Messier Marathon is accomplished without the help of a go-to telescope. With my humble 8" SCT, my non-courageous plan was just to get a feel for how a Messier Marathon would unfold, using my go-to to quickly locate the objects (this is where the cheating came in). I missed the first 10 objects (lost in the light dome and the trees), and my project got sidetracked when I took time off to observe through all of those seductive dobs. But I progressed through about 25 objects before getting cold and calling it a night, and got reacquainted with some beautiful Messiers that I hadn't viewed in a long while. Something about the organization and discipline of a Messier Marathon intrigues me, and I plan to attempt it again when the date/weather/moon all align.