Date: 19 Mar 2015 15:10:40 +0100 From: Keith Turnecliff Subject: Messier Marathon Spring 2015 Due to the predicted weather here in Brittany I decided to do my Messier Marathon last night. I appreciate I would probably not see all the Messier objects but I was aiming at a minimum of 105... I had 7 A4 pages with around 240 objects to photograph including all 110 Messier objects, comet Lovejoy, loads of NGC objects and one IC object. I started at 2030hrs and managed to get my scope aligned almost perfectly. However I had to battle against cold 20mph NE winds, with higher speed gusts and very cold conditions despite loads of clothing layers. By 0030 I had completed 3 pages of the 7 and decided I needed to concentrate on the Messier Objects. An hour later I had taken as many Messier objects as were in view at that time and calculated I could go and warm up and took a 2 hour break returning at 0330hrs. I missed M7 in my calculations somehow... I realigned and refocussed the scope and started to plough my way through the remaining Messier Objects. At 0520 a cloud covered the area of the sky where my remaining images were congregated and therefore I was unable to photograph the last 10 images or so and I concentrated to other objects in the sky, periodically returning to see if the Messier objects were in view. Unfortunately they were not and by 0630hrs it was then too light to do any more imaging and I decided to call it a night. I estimate I took about 95 Messier images during my very cold windy stint, plus quite a few NGC's, IC4182 and comet Lovejoy. When I return to the UK, I shall be looking at my images, posting them on my wesite www.longitchastro.co.uk. Keith Turnecliff