In a message dated 4/2/00 12:38:14 PM Pacific Daylight Time, rozer@ousd.k12.ca.us writes:
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
Richard,
Glad you had a good time at Mt. Diablo. Coe ended up a very good night. Not the darkest of nights, but the sky cleared almost completly by sunset, and I spent the night with only long johns, jeans and a sweatshirt. Very comfortable observing weather for a change.
Lots of scopes and binos, maybe close to 40 or so. The lot felt crowded because for some reason most people set-up on the eastern half of the lot, and scopes were quite close. The western side had fewer people and more room. We need to do a better job of spreading out next time. :-)
I was running the Marathon with Paul Sterngold. He with a very nice 4" Tak and 11x80 binos, I with a 12.5" dob and 7x50 binos. We got skunked on the first four Messiers. Two -M74 and M77- because of bright sky and low clouds, and although we bagged M31 with binos, we were unable to view it with our scopes because of the slightly lower elevation of our scopes in the lot, and the crowds in front of us. We did find a new star hop though to M31. Just above and to the left of Jim Bartollinis head! :-) We couldn't in fairness count M110 and M32 even though we know they were there. We should have asked a friend to borrow a scope farther up the lot to grab those two. Oh, well.
I had gotten a good nights sleep the previous night, so I kept working when Paul S. took a nap. He had been up late the night before imaging from his home. Paul LeVevre, Nilesh and Rich Neuschaefer were the other Marathoners that I knew of, and though farther up the lot, we kept in touch on totals. I took a brief nap (although I didn't sleep) and Paul L. woke me up in time to bag the last 5. I had to use a scope belonging to a nice fellow named Daniel (I think!) to nab M30 since my scope was again in an unfortunate spot. My total was 105 Messiers objects found and observed (along with a few stray NGC galaxies), and two - M32 and 110- found, but not observed. :-(
I'll let the others post their reports and totals. I will say I was *not* the king of the Marathon last night with my 105 Messiers.