Please submit any scheduled Messier Marathon 2022 Events!
Messier Marathoners: Send me your results! (2022 or earlier)

Messier Marathon 2022

In the year 2022, New Moon will occur on March 2, 2022, and the consequent one on April 1. The weekends closest to this is March 5/6 and April 2/3, 2022, respectively, with the second one being the slightly preferred opportunity for mid-northern latitudes. So therer will be two options, with the first being the secondary one on the weehend of March 5/6, 2022, and the second being the primary option on April 2/3, 2022 (see the Messier Marathon Dates). On the first occasion, or attempting a full score of 110, a considerably low northern latitude should be desired: For attempting a full score of 110, a considerably low northern latitude should be desired: According to Tom Polakis' investigation, on the first secondary occasion (March 5/6), a full score of 110 Messier Objects should be possible between 7 deg and 17 deg Northern Latitude, with most difficult or mostly impossible M30 in the morning, and M52 causing the southern limit. On the second, primary option weekend (April 2/3), there is a very slim chance that it should be possible between 31 deg and 41 deg N, again difficult M30, and the southern limit now caused by M74 and M110. Note that on this date, M74 and also M77 will be extremely difficult!

Messier Marathon Events 2022

Please note that due to the still and unfortunately ongoing Covid19 pandemic, we kindly ask and urge everybody to observe all necessary precautions, take care about your and everybody's health. It is still necessary to stay careful with mass gatherings, if ever undertaking a Messier Marathon session this spring. Stay safe and at health!

Again, we plan to announce all scheduled 2022 Messier Marathon Events here.

Note: With regret, many parties are still very careful in envisaging, planning, announcing and conducting events for the 2022 Messier Marathon, due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

CloudyNights Electronically Assisted Astronomy (EAA) Team organizes Messier Marathon Team Planning for both the Messier Marathon occasions in the evenings of March 5-6 and April 2-3. See their announce! This will be the second CloudyNights EAA forum TEAM Messier Marathon, a Zoom-type meeting. - Doug Lucas
The North Central Kansas Astronomical Society (NCKAS) will be doing another Messier Marathon around April 1st this year again after a 10 year break! We will have a virtual cooperative effort with astronomers from across the states of Kansas and Texas participating this year. They'll have our progress posted on their Messier Marathon site http://messier.nckas.org/. - Todd K. Tuttle
The 2022 All Arizona Messier Marathon is scheduled for the weekend of March 26/27, 2022. After two years missed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this event is sponsored again by the Saguaro Astronomy Club (SAC) (for the 28th time). This time, it will not be held at the Salome Emergency Airfield, but at the nearby Antenna Site Observing Location,
Also see SAC's 2022 All Arizona Messier Marathon announce on web, their Announce on Facebook (note their facebook page).

Please submit any scheduled events for announce here.

If you have undertaken, or participated in, a Messier Marathon, 2022 or earlier, if not already done so, please send me your or your group's results, or the link to your results page, for inclusion in our Messier Marathon Results page!

Extracurricular Activities

While it is the goal of the Messier Marathon to observe as many Messier Objects in a night as possible, it is sometimes convenient and enjoyable to combine the Messier Marathon with some other observational activities, in case some time is left during the night session. In the following, we propose some options to select from:

Deepsky enthusiasts can look for additional clusters, nebulae, and galaxies. While you can certainly pick and observe whatever you like, we also provide a list of additional deepsky objects to select from (also available with data).

It is always delightful to add to the Messier Marathon the observation of as many of the planets as possible. This year, a number of them will be very close to their conjunctions: Jupiter will come into conjunction with the Sun on March 5, Neptune on March 13. So Neptune will be impossible on both occasions, Jupiter on the first, and very difficult on the second opportunity. Uranus may be picked in the evening; bright Venus, Mars, Saturn and tiny Pluto can be found in the morning sky, while Mercury might also be found on the first opportunity in the morning sky (impossible on the second one).

Some comets brighter than about mag 14.0 will be visible; we will list them below from various sources (e.g., Skyhound's Comet Chasing page, Seiichi Yoshida's Visual Comet lists for the northern and southern hemisphere, and the Fachgruppe Kometen list):


Comet                        RA   (2000.0)    Dec mag   RA   (2000.0)    Dec mag
                                March 6, 2022              April 3, 2022

19P/Borelly                  02 55 56.5 +25 22 28  8.7  04 30 40.8 +37 23 47 10.0
29P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 1   04 22 16.4 +29 13 26 15.6  04 37 05.7 +29 02 49 15.8  outbursts ~11m
C/2019 L3 (ATLAS)            02 55 56.5 +25 22 28 12.5  06 43 39.5 +16 22 07 12.8
67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko    08 24 57.0 +26 13 20 13.8  08 45 01.0 +23 08 09 15.1
116P/Wild 4                  09 33 05.5 +19 24 21 12.7  09 24 57.6 +18 54 22 12.6
C/2019 T4 (ATLAS)            12 01 36.7 -26 19 56 14.0  06 43 39.5 +16 22 07 13.9
C/2017 K2 (PanSTARRS)        18 44 03.4 +11 19 36 10.4  18 54 25.7 +11 38 27  9.7
9P/Tempel 1                  18 57 27.7 -22 47 00 11.4  20 23 11.7 -22 32 16 11.4  - El 34/37
22P/Kopff                    20 15 51.7 -18 17 38  9.6  21 41 27.3 -13 22 21  9.5
C/2021 E3 (ZTF)              20 19 47.1 -18 34 04 14.1  20 51 27.2 -27 00 13 13.2

Observers in the southern hemispher may also turn to these two comets:

C/2020 Y2 (ATLAS)             09 05 01.0 -70 06 01 14.0  07 05 14.0 -61 48 20 13.9
C/2021 A1 (Leonard)           21 20 58.6 -34 51 48 11.4  21 00 57.2 -35 36 27 12.5

Note that occasionally comets become bright shortly (like Hyakutake in 1996, Hale-Bopp in 1997, Ikeya-Zhang and Utsunomiya in 2002), so check back for possible updates shortly before Marathon date. Also occasionally, a supernova of brightness available to amateur telesopes may have flashed up be spottable in time (like SN 1998S in NGC 3877, SN 2002ap in M74, SN 2006X in M100, SN 2012aw in M95, and SN 2014J in M82 in their years of appearance).

This year, of the "first" four minor planets, bright (1) Ceres (evening) and (4) Vesta (morning) will be in considerabl observing situation. (2) Pallas will be close to the Sun and thus almost impossible at elongations of only about 24 and 13 deg from the Sun on the two dates. Not very much better will be (3) Juno at 33 and 50 deg elongation, respectively- For those who want to try these objects, data for the two weekends in question are as follows:

Planet                 RA   (2000.0)   Dec   mag   RA   (2000.0)   Dec   mag
                         March  6, 2021              April  3, 2021
 
(1) Ceres              04 11 23.2 +22 16 51  8.9   04 47 51.1 +24 29 13  9.0
(2) Pallas             00 43 06.8 -07 24 24  9.9   01 26 26.1 -04 54 45  9.7  - El 24/13
(3) Juno               20 50 51.1 -09 41 28 11.0   21 32 24.9 -06 42 30 10.9  - El 33/50
(4) Vesta              19 57 17.2 -20 04 21  8.2   20 52 01.5 -17 54 00  8.2

Moreover, meteors from various showers may occur, and depending on your location, you may be able to observe the International Space Station, ISS.

Please send me any results of your Messier Marathon for inclusion in our Messier Marathon Results page!

Messier Marathon Home < 2023 | 2021 >

Hartmut Frommert
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Last Modification: April 3, 2022