After the practice all-nighters I had in January and February, and the “Third Quarter” practice two weeks before the club’s Messier Marathon, I felt ready to tackle the challenge of my first Messier Marathon. I felt some outside pressure, as I had given a talk at the San Antonio Astronomical Association “Beginner’s Forum” in March. In that talk I had explained my approach to the marathon – everything from charts to naps to timing. So it felt like some people were watching me to see how I actually did on my first marathon.
The field was open on Friday night, even though the marathon was going to run on Saturday night. Friday afternoon was cold and windy, temperature in the high 40s and expected to go down to about freezing overnight. I was set up with my pick-up next to my scope and with a camper shell on the back of the pick-up. I would have a retreat from the wind, if not from the cold.
The sky was severe clear all afternoon, but as the sun set, the few of us that had chosen to spend two nights at the star party saw a bank of clouds in the west under the thin crescent moon. These clouds continued to advance toward us, and by the time it was beginning to get dark enough to see stars, they had covered all of the difficult western objects. It was disappointing to not have a chance to identify these, since it had been a month since I had the opportunity to do so and they were now 30 degrees closer to the horizon than when I had last practiced on them.
The rest of the sky was nice and clear, and I was able to easily see the 5.6 magnitude stars in the Little Dipper. I found a number of galaxies, starting with the Leo triplets and the Big Dipper and moved on to the Virgo cluster of galaxies.
But the cloud bank continued to roll in from the east, and by 2330 the sky was mostly covered by clouds. I decided the best thing was to get into my down sleeping bag and see what the sky looked like later. When I awoke about 1:30, the sky had cleared. But oh! Was it windy! And it was cold!
I rolled out of my sleeping bag and spent an hour with the middle of the night objects, following them down to the top of Sagittarius and Cygnus. I had a cup of hot chocolate in the warming booth that Hunter Scott, our host had made available in the tree line surrounding the field. (By the way, he did an incredible job preparing the field and making snacks and hot drinks available for the event.) And then I went back to bed to wait for the pre dawn hour and a half .
The pre-dawn went well. The season had progressed and more of the constellations were available in the East than the last time I had practiced a few weeks before. I saw all those Messier objects that I had not been able to see in the preceding months.
After a nap that lasted until the need for a late breakfast woke me up, I got up and commiserated with the others that had spent the night on how cold and windy it had been. Some wondered, as the day progressed and it got no warmer, whether many folks would come out for a cold night of star watching.
However, as the afternoon wore on, the field filled with cars and scopes. One estimate made before the sun went down was that we had 40+ scopes on the field and over 70 folks using them. We had Rudy’s BBQ catered, which probably increased the crowds. But it was still windy. The prayer over the food included a supplication that the sky stay clear and the wind die down. (And that is what happened.)
The sun set as anxious astronomers sat down at their scopes to take a look at the thin crescent moon 30 degrees above the horizon. When the stars began to appear, I worked hard to try to find the evening objects in the glow of the sun set. I was able to find most of the sunset objects quickly. M78 was not easy, but I finally spotted it as the sky grew darker. M74 turned out to be too hard to find. I had a pointer star to give me reference, but it was almost lost in the warm red of the fading sunset and I could see nothing above it at all – above in my eyepiece, which was closer yet to the horizon.
The night proceeded, pretty much according to plan. I was able to see all the other Messier objects, including the nasty hard ones in the early morning. Added to this, I saw several comets, several planets, and was able to stay warm all night. Compared with the night before, Saturday night was easy as far as the weather was concerned.
I felt like my preparation time for the marathon was just right. I was disappointed at missing M74, but in that I did not feel alone. Many astronomers better and more experienced than I am have had the same problem. I came in second for points for manual scopes in our club – I did not get as many of the extra credit comets and asteroids as Mike did. I had not planned that part of the marathon very well and only had large scale charts of the position of those objects.
Would I do this again? Sure! Getting ready for the Messier Marathon taught me a lot about the sky. It trained my eye to see faint fuzzies quickly. It helped me to organize my observing time. It helped me to grow in my appreciation of dark sky sites and as the months rolled around the sky, I learned even more about the progression of the sky through the year.
What’s next? I think I might be headed toward a binocular Messier Marathon in the future.
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