Messier Marathon Observer's Results

Here we plan to list all reported Messier Marathon Observer's Results. Please notify me if you'd like to have your results/score/report/link to be added !

Historical Messier Marathon Results

(widely based on Don Machholz's report in his Messier Marathon Observer's Guide, and private communications with Tom Hoffelder and AJ Crayon)

In 1976, Tom Hoffelder and Tom Reiland of Pittsburgh, PA, noticed that it would be possible to observe most, if not all Messier objects in one night around the first day of spring (March 21) each year. They decided to try it in 1977. That year, both of them did (though Tom Hoffelder had moved to Akron, OH), and also Ed Flynn of Pittsburgh did a marathon (which was probably the first ever). Tom Hoffelder notified Walter Scott Houston of Sky & Telescope who published the story in March 1979 (when Tom had already moved again to Florida). Don Machholz states to have realized the possibility even in the late 1960s, but did not begin further investigation until 1978. Eventually, Gerry Rattley was the first marathoner to log all 110 Messier objects in the night of March 23/24, 1985 from Dugas, Arizona.

1990 Messier Marathon Results

1991 Messier Marathon Results

1992 Messier Marathon Results

1993 Messier Marathon Results

1994 Messier Marathon Results

1995 Messier Marathon Results

1996 Messier Marathon Results

..with Great Comet of 1996, Hyakutake..

1997 Messier Marathon Results

..with Great Comet of 1997, Hale-Bopp, and Mars near its best..

1998 Messier Marathon Results

.. with Supernova 1998S in NGC 3877 .. unusually many observers weathered out ..
We continue to hold our Messier Marathon 1998 page for the record.

1999 Messier Marathon Results

We continue to hold our Messier Marathon 1999 page for the record.

2000 Messier Marathon Results

We continue to hold our 2000 Messier Marathon page for the record.

2001 Messier Marathon Results

We continue to hold our 2001 Messier Marathon page for the record.

The first Messier Marathon of the new millennium, 2001 turned out to be a truely record breaking event!

Please email me your or your group's Messier Marathon 2001 results for announce here !

Please email me all Messier Marathon results (2001 or earlier) for inclusion here!

2002 Messier Marathon

The year 2002 will offer another good opportunity for hunting down all 110 Messier objects, as New Moon occurs on March 14 (weekend March 16-17, 2001), though M30 might be difficult. For more detail, see our Messier Marathon 2002 page. Again, we plan to announce all scheduled events here.

Please email me any scheduled events for announce here.


If you have undertaken, or participated in, a Messier Marathon, please email me your or your group's results, or the link to your results page ! Also send me past results which are not already in this page !


Marathon Home

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

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Last Modification: 9 Apr 2001, 09:25 MET