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:

Rukl 6 Atlas
Rukl 7 Endymion and lots of of craterlets; Mare Humboldtianum on the limb
Rukl 15 Cepheus, Berzellus, Franklin, Mercurius, Carrington
Rulk 16 the mini gang of four Messala Geminus, Burckhardt and Cleomedes
Rukl 26 Cleomedes, Rima Cleomedes
Rukl 27 Mare Marginus, Mare Anguis, and the dorsa within Crisium
Rukl 38 Lacus Perseverantiae near Furnicus, Mare Smithii
Rukl 48 Dorsa Geikie, Dorsa Mawson and Messier and Messier A right on the terminator
Rukl 49 Langrenus and Bilharz, Atwood and Naonobu (the Micky Mouse on the moon) This map yielded the most observations - 15
Rukl 59 Petavius and Rima Petavius, Vallis Snellius
Rukl 60 Vendelinus, Lame
Rukl 69 Furnerius , Rima Furnerius
Rukl 76 Steinheil and Watt - Nice!

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

Observing Reports	Observing Sites	GSSP 2010, July 10 - 14 Frosty Acres Ranch Adin, CA OMG! Its full of stars. Golden State Star Party	Join Mailing List	Mailing List Archives
Current Observing Intents Click here for more details.