Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2000 20:22:08 -0600
From: Jim & Sue Sapp <stars@integrityonline.com>
To: spider@seds.org
Subject: Marathon Results

Hi!
     The Longmont Astronomical Society (Colorado) held it's 1st Annual
Mighty Messier Marathon on Saturday night, 1 April 2000 at Pawnee National
Grasslands in northeastern Colorado. Below is a little write up I did for
our newsletter, to inform those interested of our results. I used 12x50
binoculars and a 3.25 inch f/15 refractor to bag 106 M.'s. The only other
member of our party to go for the gusto, Dave Ewing, used an 8 inch f/6
Newtonian to bag 100 even. No computers, no setting circles.

- Jim Sapp

     The viewing was great until the witching hours, when a soft moist
breeze from the west accompanied slowly building clouds from all quarters.
Many of the hearty souls that had come began to fold under the impending
onslaught of obscuration, correctly foretelling the sky's approaching fate;
and at one point five or six carloads departed simultaneously, looking for
all the world like a gaggle of geese going through the gate.
     By midnightish, some of those that remained had snuggled in for their
midnight snooze.
     By 1:30, the sky was completely obscured with only a narrow wedge on
the southeast horizon revealing one or two stars through binoculars. Only
two stalwarts remained past that.
     By 2:30 or so, a renewed light breeze from the west began gathering the
clouds into rapidly moving bands, leaving strips of sky through which we
could continue the Messier pursuit. (Rapid dodge & shoot kind of stuff.)
     By 3:30-ish Dave Ewing provided the clearest, most contrasty view of
the Veil nebula I have ever seen in an eight inch scope. Stunningly clear air.
Structure could be seen around the entire loop.
     With dawn approaching, the last leg of the marathon was run in a
frenzied attempt to bag the remaining dozen or so, through marvelously clear
air between patches of shifting cloud, as the meadowlarks cheared us on, but
the last two of the fleeing quarry managed to slip away into the brightening
blue, as a third hearty soul (Ray Warren) rejoined the chase.
     With an exhausted slump into the comfort of my lawn chair, the moon's
sliver was observed to rise from a low band of cloud, shortly to be replaced
by the gleaming orange rays of the sun (and a NASTY north wind).
     The race was run, and the LAS emerged victorious! Ya Haaa!!
     My game bag was stuffed with 106 confirmed messiers through the course
of the night, all captured with 3.25 inches aperture or less. (You can do it
too folks! - It's persistence, not talent!) The ones that got away were:
    M74 - tracked it's setting nearby star through the greenish-yellow
twilight to within a smidge of the western horizon. Didn't have a chance.
Two weeks earlier might have done it. (I beleive now that the ideal time to
attempt a Messier marathon is when the new moon falls around the 15th or
20th of March.)
     M77 - didn't attempt it, though Dave Ewing bagged it while I went on to
other quarry.
     M75 - in the early morning hours my guide stars to it were obscured, so
I skipped it, then remembered it too late. By the time it was centered in
the 3 inch, the background sky was too bright to see it.
     M30 - had a good crack at it, but that section of Aquarius never
cleared a persistent band of cloud, though while waiting for it I was able
to bag the last globulars in Pegasus as the clouds there were parting.
     Dave Ewing bagged 100 of the little buggers!
     Those are the only totals I am aware of at this time. I don't beleive
there were more that three or four actual marathoners at the Flats. The boys
with the big guns were going through some NGC edge-on galaxy lists - until
the clouds scared 'em away. The sky says "April Fools!!"