w Messier Marathon Dates

Messier Marathon Dates

Given below are the best dates for Messier Marathons for the upcoming future years up to 2039. This table is based on data from Don Machholz' Messier Marathon Observer's Guide. Besides the Messier objects, you may also see planets these weekends, and we indicate which are difficult (D) or impossible (I), where Mercury=1, Pluto=9; all others should be quite easy. Note that due to their positions in orbit the far and thus "slow" outer planets behave as follows: Pluto is always located so that it is visible in March/April during the years covered here, while Uranus will become critical in 2002 and impossible between 2007 and 2018, Neptune will become critical in 2010 and impossible some years later (Machholz' data are not exactly conclusive here, in the opinion of the present author), while Saturn will come into comfortable observing location in 1999 and stay there throughout the time covered here. The planets up to Jupiter change their positions faster so that you are pointed to the table below.
Year  New Moon[s]          Primary Weekend      Secondary Weekend

1998 Mar 28.1 Mar 28 (I: 1,4,6) 1999 Mar 17.8 Mar 20 (D: 1) Mar 13 (I: 1,5) 2000 Mar 06.2, Apr 04.8 Apr 1 Mar 11 2001 Mar 25.0 Mar 24 (D: 2) 2002 Mar 14.1 Mar 16 (D: 7,2) 2003 Mar 03.1, Apr 01.8 Mar 29 (D: 7,1) Mar 08 (I: 7) 2004 Mar 21.0 Mar 20 (D: 7) 2005 Mar 10.4 Mar 12 (I: 7,2) 2006 Mar 29.4 Mar 25 (D: 7) Apr 01 (D: 7) 2007 Mar 19.1 Mar 17 (I: 7,8) 2008 Mar 07.7, Apr 06.2 Mar 08 (I: 7) Mar 29 (I: 7) 2009 Mar 26.7 Mar 28 (I: 7,1,2) 2010 Mar 15.9 Mar 13 (I: 7,5,1,8) Mar 20 (I: 7,1,5) 2011 Mar 04.9, Apr 03.6 Mar 05 (I: 7,8,1,5) Apr 02 (I: 7,5,4) 2012 Mar 22.6 Mar 24 (I: 7,8,1) 2013 Mar 11.8 Mar 09 (I: 7,8,4,2) Mar 16 (I: 7,4,2) 2014 Mar 01.0, Mar 30.8 Mar 29 (I: 7) 2015 Mar 20.4 Mar 21 (I: 7,8,4) 2016 Mar 09.1, Apr 07.5 Mar 12 (I: 7,8) Apr 05 (I: 7,1) 2017 Mar 28.1 Mar 25 (I: 7,8,2) Apr 01 (I: 7,8,1) 2018 Mar 17.5 Mar 17 (I: 8,7) 2019 Mar 06.7, Apr 05.4 Mar 30 (I: 8) Mar 09 (I: 8,7) 2020 Mar 24.4 Mar 21 Mar 28 2021 Mar 13.4 Mar 13 2022 Mar 02.7, Apr 01.3 Apr 02 Mar 05 2023 Mar 21.7 Mar 18 Mar 25 2024 Mar 10.4 Mar 09 2025 Mar 29.5 Mar 22 Mar 29 2026 Mar 19.1 Mar 21 Mar 14 2027 Mar 08.4, Apr 07.0 Apr 03 Mar 06 2028 Mar 26.2 Mar 25 2029 Mar 15.2 Mar 17 Mar 10 2030 Mar 04.3, Apr 02.9 Mar 30 Mar 09 2031 Mar 23.2 Mar 22 2032 Mar 11.7 Mar 13 Mar 06 2033 Mar 30.7 Mar 27 Apr 02 2034 Mar 20.4 Mar 18 Mar 25 2035 Mar 10.0 Mar 10 2036 Mar 27.9 Mar 29 Mar 22 2037 Mar 17.0 Mar 14 Mar 21 2038 Mar 06.0, Apr 04.7 Apr 03 Mar 06 2039 Mar 24.8 Mar 26 Mar 19
The MAA Moonphases Calendar was of great help for compiling this list (getting New Moon times after 2019). Unix/Solaris calendar helped to determine the weekends.

Planetary visibilities will be added for the time after 2020.


Hartmut Frommert (spider@seds.org)
Christine Kronberg (smil@lrz.uni-muenchen.de)

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Last Modification: 5 Apr 2001, 10:50 MET