Date: Mon, 22 Mar 1999 13:23:22 -0500
From: Mark E. Miller
Subject: MM99

The Kalamazoo Astronomical Society (Michigan, USA) held its most successful
Messier Marathon to date March 19/20 1999. Eight members of the Society
joined Scott Sebastian at his farm south of Kalamazoo (near Schoolcraft) on
a gloriously clear Friday night. 12 of Mike Sinclair's high school students
from the Kalamazoo Area Math/Science Center were also with us for the
evening hours; they had an assignment from Mike of objects to observe. Club
members pointed out many of these out to the students, who showed remarkable
persistence in what was for many a novel activity.

I arrived about 7 pm to find four members already there. We were treated to
a beautiful sky picture of waxing crescent moon, Saturn and Venus. After I
set up my 8" LX-200 and 20x80 binoculars, I observed the Pleiades and M-42
with binoculars at 7:33 - well before the end of twilight. My plan was to
use the binocs to sweep up as many objects as possible quickly, and use the
telescope only for those too faint for the 80mm. By the way, the telescope's
computer is fried and I haven't replaced it, so it's completely manual -
I'm not cheating by using GOTO!

At 8:00 I started hunting for M-74, a galaxy in Pisces on the western
horizon. I used alpha and beta Arietus to point to it, and by 8:10 it
popped out of the twilight as a faint brightening in the eyepiece - not
impressive, but 1 down, 109 to go! Over to delta Ceti, and there's M-77 in
the same field. Now over to M-33, the big face-on spiral in Triangulum -
and my scope shows *nothing* where I know it is - switch to binoculars,
and there it is - the lower magnification allows the eye to perceive the
darker sky around it. Continue to M-31 and its companions, M-32 and M-110 -
easy in binoculars. I swept up the rest of the fall and winter Milky Way
clusters and nebulae with binocs, and arrived at the Beehive (M-44) in
Cancer at 9:13 - just over an hour into the marathon.

At this point I took a quick break and wandered around to see what others
were doing.  Bill Nigg had his Astrophysics refractor out, and I'm sure as
soon as Mars rose he took a break from Messiers to look at the red planet,
but I wasn't around for that. Tod, a fairly new member, had his 8" Newtonian
on a German equatorial mount, Dave Garten had the club Dobsonian, and Mike
Dupuis had his `Albatross' - a big Dob (I know we just went over this, Mike -
is it 17 9/16"?). Mike Sinclair had an 8" Schmidt-Cass, and two smaller
scopes for his students.

Back to it - the five Leo galaxies took only a few minutes, then the
northern objects - M-81 and 82 in binocs, then 108 and the Owl, but for some
reason the glare from gamma UMa hid 109 in binocs - switch to telescope for
40, the double star north of delta UMa, then still using the scope, 101, a
big spiral, the Whirlpool, 63, 94, 106, and back to 109.  102 is a
controversial object, but since some identify it with NGC5866, I observed
this.

Now a deep breath, and on to the Virgo cluster. I used the scope for these,
although I've observed the Messier Virgo galaxies in binoculars, because I
wanted to add some fainter Herschel objects. Midnight came partway through
the Virgos, and with it, the dew.  Because our air masses pass over Lake
Michigan and pick up a lot of moisture, nearly *every* clear night in lower
Michigan ends up with dew, or in this case, frost.  I had an Orion dew
heater wrapped around the edge of the corrector plate, but this was not
enough for the strong frost conditions - I ended up with the outer half of
the corrector clear, and the inner half completely covered with frost - I
was essentially using an 8" scope with a 5" central obstruction! And what
about my eyepiece, finder, and binoculars?  Fortunately, Mike Dupuis had
brought his big kerosene heater. Every half hour from then on, I went
over to his heater and first thawed, then evaporated, my big Televue 40mm
wide field, and my finder.  This slowed things down considerably, but Mike's
heater saved my marathon. Thanks, Mike! I finished the spring sky with M83,
a southerly galaxy in Hydra, then at 1:20 stretched out in my frost-covered
sleeping bag for a 90-minute nap. By this time, the only die-hards left are
Mike Dupuis, Dave Garten, and myself.

Up at 3:00, and run through the Summer Triangle in binocs very quickly.
Back over to Ophiuchus' globulars, then Scorpius and M-4 (breathtaking as
always!) by 3:30. Now I'm trying to catch objects as they rise high enough
out of the `frost-fog' which is beginning to obscure the horizon. I run
from the claws of Aquila down the summer Milky Way towards Sagittarius -
from M-11 down to M-7. It's 4:24, and I've done 100 objects. I've also run
out of objects high enough to see - they've risen, but are hidden by this
`frost-fog'. I try to penetrate this haze, first with binocs, then scope -
I can see epsilon and zeta Sgr, at the base of the teapot, but not the globs
which should be between them. I pick up M-15 at 4:50, M-69, one of the Sgr
globs, at 5:04, and finally M-2 at 5:28, well into morning twilight. That's
it! 103 out of 110, and given Michigan weather, about as good as I can
expect. More importantly, a great night of celestial wonders, friendship,
and learning.

Mark E. Miller