From: Ashirwad Tillu Date: Fri, Mar 24, 2023 at 8:59 AM Subject: Completed Messier Marathon on 22 Mar 2023 It is a great feeling to share that I successfully completed all 105 objects of the Messier list on the night of 22 Mar 2023. Please find the log. Location: My village house at a place called Pandhurli, on Ghoti Sinnar Road near the city Nashik, Maharashtra, India. This second home is located in the farming area, in the vicinity of Western ( Sahyadri) hills and is roughly 150km East of Mumbai ( my regular residence). Acknowledgement: Thanks to my wife, Mrudula, who specifically came with me to encourage me and be with me to support my food, since I tend to forget this when I am with my telescope. To add, she does not want me to drive back alone from our village home back to Mumbai, after my whole night session. The point to note – I am now retired and she is not. Equipment used: 18 inch Dobsonian ( F4.5), Eyepieces : Main Eyepiece used was Televue 21mm Ethos. Also used 32 mm plossl and at times, Televue 11mm Delite and most important OIII and UHC filters. My previous marathons: Based on the previous attempts (please refer to my logs for Mar 2017 and Mar 2018 and Hall of Fame in 2019 on seds.org site), I had done careful planning. The main two factors which would go against this were the slightly deteriorated sky condition in the last couple of years, due to nearby villages having more night lights and the lights due to the construction site of the free-way ( highway ). About the weather and sky condition: There was a heavy rainfall during 15 March till 19 March, which was a surprise, since it does not rain during this time of the year. The sky has been cloudy too. But the weather prediction on 22 March was favourable. Further, the earlier rains helped wash out the dust particles and transparency was really good. But there was about 50% cloud cover. Further some clouds were black which could potentially precipitate into rainfall. Fortunately, as per the prediction of weather-apps, the clouds indeed cleared off by 830PM and for the rest of the night it was clear sky. Marathon Viewing: Tried to locate M74, M31. The adverse factors were the moving clouds and the light pollution from nearby villages up to some degrees on the horizon. Finally, in the early hours post astronomical twilight, I lost M74, M31, M32, M33, M52 and M110 (M52 sighted later in the morning sky). But by 830PM, the sky was clear. I located the early objects such as M103, M34, M77, M45, M79 and so on. M76 Little dumbbell was too good through filter usage. The journey continued till the dinner break. Had a quick bite and was back for the rest of the session. Few of the messier objects which puzzle me are M40, M73 and NGC 4565 (which is not in the Messier list, why?). At around 1AM in the night, I had covered the objects at a good speed and could not resist watching some others. Markarian’s chain for example. I have traversed the chain end to end, so many times in the past, and did it again this time. Also, sighted Ceres, a dwarf planet (in Asteroid belt between Mars, Jupiter). The marathon continued later, especially with galaxies in the Coma, Virgo region. Then, there were many globular clusters at around 3AM onwards. During this, I also watched Omega Centauri, one of my favourite objects. As the Sagittarius was up, it was fun to watch M8 Lagoon, M16 Eagle, M17 Omega and M20 Trifid through the filters. As I have written above, the sky condition is a bit inferior due to the lights of highway construction. However, the filters did the trick. As the astronomical twilight was approaching, I managed to sight OC M52 which I missed in my early hour in the marathon. I could not recover the other 5 objects ( M74, M31, M32, M33 and M110). Sighting M30 required extra planning. I positioned the telescope to avoid the distant trees. The M30 was perfectly visible through the gaps between the two trees. I closed the marathon, with the hope of the next 2024 marathon where I will try to make all the objects. --- regards Ashirwad Tillu