Contributed by Jagadheep D. Pandian Date: March 22/23 Site: Fuertes observatory, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY (U.S.). Latitude = 42 degrees north. Observers: Jagadheep D. Pandian, Guanhan Chew, J.R. Skok, Krzysztof P. Findeisen. Krzysztof was there from 20:30 to 23:00. The rest of us were there from dusk to dawn. Instruments: 12-inch f/15 refractor, 11 x 80 binoculars Temperature during night: 11-15 degrees Fahrenheit Site conditions: We are part of the Cornell Astronomical Society, and this is the first attempt on the Messier marathon (to our knowledge). The telescope is permanently mounted in the observatory, so that we do not have a choice of site. The city of Ithaca lies to the west, and the freshman dorms of Cornell lie in the north-west. The rest of Cornell University campus lies to the south. As a result, light pollution is quite severe and the limiting magnitude is around 4.5. There are trees in the south and east, but due to lack of foliage, we can observe in between tree limbs using binoculars. The telescope was built in 1920, and is housed in a dome with a 1.5 feet opening. Except for motors controlling the dome itself, the telescope operations are completely manual. The telescope tracks using a innovative clock drive mechanism, which requires weights to be cranked up once every 1.5 hours. Due to the narrow slit opening of the dome, a significant amount of time is spent in just rotating the dome slit to the right sky position. This matters in a time constrained observing schedule like the Messier marathon. Results and object sequence: We found a total of 94 objects out of 110 by 4:00 am. Unfortunately, after that, clouds rolled in and so we had to abandon the observing. If it were not for the clouds, there is a pretty good chance that we might have pushed the object tally to 100. The following is the log of objects found (sorted in order of when each was found). Objects found in the binoculars are marked as "bin". # Object Time 1. M42 19:00 (bin) 2. M41 19:10 (bin) 3. M45 19:15 (naked eye) 4. M31 19:25 (bin) 5. M77 19:36 6. M35 20:20 (bin) 7. M32 20:24 8. M52 20:40 9. M103 20:50 10. M36 20:59 11. M76 21:00 12. M34 21:03 13. M43 21:09 (bin) 14. M44 21:25 (bin) 15. M1 21:27 16. M93 21:34 (bin) 17. M67 21:38 (bin) 18. M37 21:40 (bin) 19. M38 21:40 (bin) 20. M47 21:45 (bin) 21. M46 21:47 22. M50 21:50 (bin) 23. M48 21:53 (bin) Leo and Ursa Major objects (mostly galaxies) 24. M95 22:03 25. M96 22:05 26. M105 22:07 27. M3 22:16 (bin) 28. M65 22:18 29. M66 22:18 30. M81 22:32 31. M82 22:32 32. M97 22:44 33. M108 22:50 34. M109 22:55 35. M40 22:58 36. M106 23:04 37. M94 23:15 38. M63 23:18 39. M51 23:25 40. M101 23:33 41. M102 23:46 42. M53 23:54 43. M64 23:58 Primarily galaxies of the Virgo cluster 44. M98 0:09 45. M99 0:14 46. M100 0:18 47. M85 0:21 48. M84 0:23 49. M86 0:24 50. M87 0:27 51. M89 0:28 52. M90 0:32 53. M88 0:35 54. M91 0:36 55. M58 0:38 56. M59 0:48 57. M60 0:48 58. M49 0:53 59. M61 0:58 60. M104 1:04 61. M68 1:10 62. M13 1:12 63. M83 1:19 1:20 - 1:45: short break Summer objects: 64. M4 1:50 (bin) 65. M5 2:01 (bin) 66. M10 2:03 (bin) 67. M14 2:03 (bin) 68. M92 2:04 69. M57 2:08 70. M9 2:12 (bin) 71. M14 2:17 (bin) 72. M56 2:18 73. M29 2:24 74. M107 2:25 (bin) 75. M39 2:32 (bin) 76. M27 2:36 77. M71 2:39 78. M62 2:46 (bin) 79. M80 2:47 80. M19 2:52 (bin) 81. M11 3:10 82. M26 3:16 83. M16 3:24 (bin) 84. M7 3:33 (bin) 85. M17 3:34 86. M6 3:36 (bin) 87. M18 3:37 88. M24 3:41 89. M23 3:45 90. M25 3:51 91. M22 3:56 92. M20 3:57 (bin) 93. M8 3:57 (bin) 94. M21 4:05 At this point, the south-east sky (which was the location of remaining objects) was completely clouded up, and so we had to stop. Missing objects: M74 and M33 were washed out by the surface brightness of the sky (due to light pollution). Considering the failure to detect M33 even through the finderscope, we did not attempt M110. M79 was behind trees and so unobservable through the telescope. The south-west sky was too bright for it to be detected in binoculars. M78 seemed to be a marginal detection, but since neither of us were absolutely sure that it was not a figment of our imagination, it was not included in the final tally. We missed the early morning objects M28, M69, M70, M54, M55, M75, M15, M2, M72, M73 and M30 due to clouds. M30 was probably unobservable anyway due to our northern location.