Date: Fri, Mar 8, 2019 at 7:56 AM From: Ashirwad Tillu Subject: Messier Marathon on March 6, 7th I am glad to share the good news that we accomplished all 110 objects on our marathon on 6th night- 7th morning yesterday. The observation site was my village house at Pandhurli in Maharashtra, India. Thanks to your informative site and various experiences of passionate people around the world. The collective information and our past experience gave us good insight to plan this time. The sky condition was good, we had excellent equipment ( I had a new Eyepiece : 21mm Ethos ) and by this time, I have excellent understanding of the overall site at my village. Based on the above, we had done careful planning which helped us too. Please find the log. -- -- It is a great feeling to share the we (Ashirwad and Anurag) successfully completed all 110 objects of Messier list. Please find the log. Location : Ashirwad's village house at place called Pandhurli, on Ghoti Sinnar Road near city Nashik, Maharashtra, India.. Equipment used : 18 inch Dobsonian ( F4.5), Eyepieces : Main Eyepiece used was Televue 21mm Ethos ( 100 deg FoV ). Also used Televue 10 mm Ethos and Televue 11mm Delite. Team : myself Ashirwad Tillu and Anurag Shevade Based on the previous attempts (please refer to my logs for Mar 2017 and Mar 2018 on seds site), we both had done careful planning. Three key factors for the success were - Excellent sky conditions ( no clouds unlike my Mar 2018 attempt). Good transparency - Excellent equipment ( as given above) which gave us lot of leverage - Good understanding of our observation site in terms of potential stray lights, hills around etc. Specifically, the light pollution maxima is towards North Western direction due to distant city ( approx 30 km away. However, the other directions are good. Based on previous attempts and learning, we decided to cover the relatively easy objects namely M52, M31, M32, M103, M34 immediately after the sunset even before the astronomical twilight phase ends. This gave some room for the tricky objects before they start fading, namely M110, then M74, M33, M76 and M77. After this successful start, the rest of the objects till the last 4 objects, was a smooth progress. To optimise the time, the viewing order was biased by the RA of the objects and their proximity to one another (grouping based on RA and also constellation). During this phase, as we accelerated the pace, it gave a room for dinner break and couple of tea breaks too. Apart from Messier objects, we managed to see some additional objects of interest namely, traverse across complete Markarian Chain, comet 123P West Hartley, Quasar 3C 273, NGC 4567/68 Siamese Twins, Omega centauri, Centaurus A, ghost of Jupiter, Cats Eye nebula and few more. During the marathon, we changed the position of the equipment within the site thrice specifically optimising for the better viewing. The ultimate for this bit, was towards the end of the journey, for last four objects namely M72, M73, M2 and finally M30. We positioned the equipment optimally so that the objects would be seen at the earliest when they rise, especially considering the distant hillocks and the trees in the path. The most difficult was M30. The equipment was relocated to the optimal position so that we capture it immediately once it rises. Yet, it was really faint and had to seen located using averted vision and the nearby star "41 Cap". It was a great satisfaction since getting the hard objects was a struggle and finally a success. While progressing in the marathon, a sense of content was achieved when we saw the details of various objects eg. Dust lanes of M82, text book style view of M104, structure around M51, unique patterns of star arrangements in various OCs and more. -- warm regards Ashirwad