Date: Sun, 17 Mar 2002 22:27:55 -0500
From: Paul Hart
Subject: Messier Marathon 2002


Hi,

On March 17, 2002,I completed my first Messier Marathon. at Custer 
Institute Southold, New York, on the eastern tip of Long Island. I was 
using a 10 inch Newtonian, and 15 x 70 binoculars.

After a 2 day overcast, the sky cleared about 7:05 pm. I first looked at 
the setting crescent moon, and admired Comet Ikeya-Zhang, then made my 
first log of M45 at 7:19. I was able to pick up most of the early evening 
objects except for M32, M33, M74 and M77. I was pleasantly surprised at 
how easy M76 was.

Due to the high humidity I wasn't able to see as well as I normally 
expect to see from eastern L.I. For example M1 was impossible, and M101 
was unexpectedly dim. Early in the morning clouds obscured the southern 
horizon making anything low in that direction difficult to detect. My 
last entry was M11 at 4:55 am. I finished with 87 objects. If the 
conditions were better, I'm sure that I could have gotten 10 more.

                                                Paul Hart