From: SACnews, Vol. 49, Issue 4 (April 2025)


ARIZONA SPRING STAR PARTY & MESSIER MARATHON

Fri, Sat, March 28 & 29th (Two Marathons)
@ Hovatter North Site, Swap Mt, Dinner, Raffle

Report by Tom Curry, SAC President

In a nut shell, I think it went pretty well. For those of you
who did not attend the event, we missed you, and you
missed nights of really good to OK skies for observing.
Let's start at the beginning. A few of us showed up
Wednesday for an extra night or two of clear skies. Despite
some concern about the ramped up activity at the gravel
quarry as you turn off to our site, it turned out to mostly be
an early morning issue of noise when the site seemed to
come alive about 6 a.m.

The new solar array going in a mile south of the airfield
evidently is using a lot of gravel for the project and there
were numerous dump trucks outside of the quarry where
we turn to get to our event site. Wednesday and Thursday
evenings there appeared to be truck maintenance going on
in that area, but it was little issue for us, being so far away.
Where we set up for the event was a few hundred yards
further to the south than previous events and there was
plenty of room for all who came.

Wednesday night skies were very clear with my light
meter reading into Bortle 2 range.

Thursday a few more people showed up and the day
was spent keeping out of the sun and generally relaxing.
Clouds came and went during the day but cleared for the
most part into the evening. Evening skies were not kind
though, dropping into the Bortle 3 range according to my
light meter. Dust in the air seemed to magnify the light of
the various light domes.

Friday a few more vehicles showed up and the
opportunity for Joe Goss' dog Baxter to meet new friends
increased. Speaking of dogs, this event had the most dogs
of any I had been at, all were friendly and easily
entertained. The day was again off and on cloudy and
windy. The forecast was for clear skies until about midnight.
Then, forecasts can be wrong. We had good viewing, again
in the high Bortle 3 category, until 10 p.m. when we noticed
aircraft headlights shining in the clouds, and that signaled
pretty much the end of viewing. Did I mention, no I did not,
evening temperatures were t-shirt warm until late. I can't
complain about that! Even though viewing was curtailed,
most of us stayed up talking with like minds and still
enjoyed the evening.

Saturday we lost some of the crowd but gained some
others. The day was cooler and those of us sitting around
outside varied from the shade to the sun. 
As the morning wore on, several of us started taking our
swap meet gear to the large shade structure the Prause's
had acquired for the event. Deals were made and many
were exceptionally great. It seems some people were
trying to clear closets and we thank them for their
generosity.

Dinner, arranged by Lori and Mitch was super and a
good number of people attended. Thank you Mitch and
Lori for all the effort that you took to make that happen.

The raffle was held, contrary to past events, after the
meal. Again, there were a lot of people contributing gear
to the raffle and we thank them. A special thank you
goes out to Starizona for their support this year with a
variety of really nice items. A fun time was had by most,
if not all.

Then it was time for everyone to get ready for the
night's viewing. Luckily, the sky was to be pretty much
free of clouds. Unluckily, dust still seemed to be an issue
and the seeing was the poorest of the nights we had.
That did not seem to bother some of the Messier
Marathon participants who managed to capture most of
the objects, I think the best was 109. I only captured
one, M106, but then again I was experiencing the Spring
Star Party and not the Messier Marathon, my choice. I
worked mostly on the Herschel 400 and on some
starburst regions per an article in the May edition of Sky
and Telescope.

Sunday morning came too fast and with it the exodus
of participants. Those I talked with on their way out
seemed to have enjoyed their weekend, as I did. You
could have too had you been there. Any night out
observing is better than sitting at home. Just saying.


From: Saguaro Skies: SAC Newsletter, Vol. 49 Issue 4 (April 2025), pp. 6-8.
Saguaro Astronomy Club. 
https://www.saguaroastro.org/wp-content/sac-newsletters/2025/April.pdf

The results are on p. 8:
http://messier.seds.org/xtra/marathon/az25res.txt