The lunar messier marathon

by Jane Houston Jones


Last night Mojo and I drove to our favorite dark sky location 33 N 115 W in the southern California desert for a second Messier Marathon. Our first one of 2006, the week before on march 25/26, yielded 104 Messiers, clouds at dusk, dawn and during whole chunks of the night. We were happy to get the104.

So we thought it would be fun to try it again last night. Since the 4 day old moon wouldn't set for many hours in the early evening, I took a look at Akkana's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Moon http://www.shallowsky.com/moon/hitchhiker.html made some notes, and tucked my old Rukl Atlas of the Moon into my observing bag to start the night with. First Messier was the Pleiades, in the same field of view as the moon.

As soon as I set up my telescope at about 5:00 p.m. I started observing the moon. Since the contrast wasn't that great so early, I started with Rulk map 26 and explored the Crisium area. Soon I had checked off eight features. The marathon was on! These are just the highlights:

When I added them up this afternoon, I had observed 90 lunar features on my Messier marathon night, including Messier's own named craters. Add to that moon, Mars, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn, and 8 moons (including Hyperion) of Saturn, and the usual 4 Galilean moons put my solar system list up to 107. Add in comets c/2006 A1 Pojmanski and 7P Schwassman Wachmann, and my total came up to 109, which was the same as my Messier marathon count for the night. More details and photos here:

http://www.otastro.org/2006-04-01-messier/index.html


Posted on shallow-sky Apr 02, 2006 21:03:22 PT
Converted by report.pm 1.4 Apr 02, 2006 22:36:21 PT

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