Date: Mon, 15 Apr 2002 14:05:52 -0400
From: Ed Kreminski 
Subject: Messier Marathon 2002 Results



Here is my Messier Marathon report for 2002:

Ed Kreminski finished a Messier Marathon on the evening of 10/11 April 2002 
spotting 106 Messier objects. The same set-up was used at the same location 
for the third year in a row. The location was a dark sky site in east 
central Ohio. The seeing and transparency were only fair throughout the 
night. The telescope was an Alt-Az mounted TV-101 4" apo-refractor with a 
red-dot pointing device. Star charts were used to determine the location of 
the objects.
Messier misses included early evening objects M74, M77, M33 and late morning 
object M30. M31 was spotted in evening twilight but M32 and M110 had to wait 
until M31/32/110 reappeared in the morning sky. Comet C/2002 C1 Ikeya-Zhang 
was seen at sunset and again in the morning. The comet shone brightly at 
magnitude 3.5 and sported a tail extending over 4 degrees during it's 
morning reappearance. Venus, Mars, Saturn and Jupiter formed a spectacular 
line in the western sky at sunset. The double form of the ISS Alpha with 
docked Shuttle Atlantis was easily visible at low power in the scope at 
01:06UT. A handful of bright blue-green meteors between 6-8UT rounded out 
the wonderful evening.

Thanks again,
Ed