by Richard Ozer
My original intention was to head for Coe to participate in the Messier Marathon; especially after reading Jay's success with daytime observing. However, by 4:00 I felt that the wind and sky was too uncertain to drive the 2 hours and headed instead to Mt. Diablo for the first MDAS society night of the season. By 7:30, the skies had completely cleared and the wind had died down and it promised to be a comfortable night for observing. Mt. Diablo is not exactly dark in the absence of fog below, but the seeing has been quite steady the last few times I've been there and last night was no exception, considering the amount of moisture that has been present in the air over the last week or so.
Rather than do the Marathon thing, I decided to make a major dent in my Messier survey. Up until now, I've done the survey with a 4-1/2" long tube newtonian; much of which from my driveway in Oakland. Last night, I brought my 10" DOB, although completed in October, has gotten very little light (maybe five nights in all).
I'm still not used to a larger aperture. When using the 4-1/2", if I saw it, it had to be a Messier object. That same assumption got me into trouble as I tried to dissect Coma Bereneces, Leo and Virgo. It went something like this... I'd look for say, M53, find a faint fuzzy, assume I found M53, nudge my scope a bit and find a huge galaxy staring me in the eyeball. If it were any darker, I probably would not have been able to tell anything apart at all because of the incredible density of obervable objects.
Once I got used to it, things got easier. I managed to bag in a very short time m53, m64, m85, m88, m98, m99, m100, m49, m58, m59, m60, m61, m84, m86, m87, m89, m90, and m104 (the Sombrero galaxy). The Sombrero was the most spectacular to observe, as it was the only galaxy that really gave up any structure in the bright background light. It was down to just 2 people by 11:30, and we packed up and left. Good thing I didn't driver farther because I was wiped out... I was seeing twelve stars in the trapesium... and that was with only one eye.
Not exactly a marathon, but that leaves me with only 15 more to go.... I hope that Coe went well and I'm curious to know if anyone actually completed a Marathon last night.