From:    Ashirwad Tillu
Date:    Mar 20, 2026, 4:15 PM
Subject: Completed Messier Marathon on 18 Mar 2026


It is a great feeling to share that a group of us (4 persons) successfully 
completed 104 objects of the Messier list on the night of 18 Mar 2026. 
Please find the log.

Location: A small village "Harihareshwar" in the Konkan area, which is on 
the West Coast of India, and south of Mumbai. In the huge Western coast, the 
above village is approximately 150km south of Mumbai. It has a reasonably 
clear sky, possibly Bortle 2 to 3. The light pollution is caused by small LED 
lights of the village houses around the observation site in this village.

Team : Kiran Ambardekar, Anurag Shevade, Mayank Shah and myself.

Equipment used: 8-inch Dobsonian ( F4 ) which Kiran got. Eyepieces: Main 
Eyepiece used was Explorer Scientific 20mm 100deg (which Anurag got). Also 
used 25mm and 32 mm plossl and at times, and most important OIII filters. 
Interestingly, due to logistics, we ended up selecting the 8 in Dob. The OTA 
is rebuilt to suit the astrophotography with full frame astro camera.

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 and Mar 2023 on 
seds.org site), a careful planning was done. The main two factors which 
would go against us were the weather condition and the lights from the 
houses within the village.

Marathon Viewing: We started with M74 to begin with. But, as a surprise 
element, the modified Dob gave some issues. And we had to stop chasing the 
Messier objects. We sorted out this quick enough. But this was at the cost 
of loosing some evening objects. Finally, in the early hours post astronomical 
twilight, we lost M31, M32, M110, M33, M76, M77, and M52 (M52 sighted later 
in the morning sky).

As per the weather prediction, the sky was clear till 2AM. After solving the 
issue with the Dob, the further journey was smooth. We quickly completed 
M45, M34, M79, M38, M1, M42, M43 and many more Open Clusters. The journey 
continued till the dinner break at 930PM. Had a quick bite and were back for 
the rest of the session.
 
Till around 2AM in the night, we had covered the objects at a good speed and 
could not resist watching some others. Specific mention of Jupiter with three 
moons (one of them was behind Jupiter). At later point, we also watched Omega 
Centauri, one of my favorite objects.

The main challenge post 2AM was clouds. The clouds were low height and moving 
and not very dense. So we would change focus to different objects which were 
visible then. Thus, galaxies in Virgo and Coma were located later at times 
while completing various globular clusters and some Open clusters.

As the night advanced, some of the village lights went off, but not all. 
However, the O3 filter did the trick specifically to see some of the nebulae.

As the astronomical twilight was approaching, we managed to sight OC M52 which 
we missed in the early hour in the marathon. we could not recover the other 
6 objects (M77, M76, M31, M32, M33 and M110).

Sighting M30 required extra planning as usual (tips from my previous 
marathons). We positioned the telescope to avoid any obstructions. 
We studied the position from where the Sun would rise. The star 41 Capricorni 
was visible after it was a few degrees up. Later the M30 was visible for a 
very short time, and the astronomical twilight made it vanish. But it was a 
great feeling to see it as the last object in our marathon.
--

regards
Ashirwad Tillu