Messier Marathon 2016-03-06

Messier Marathon write-up 2016-MAR-06

Full disclosure – I’ve already found and viewed all the Messier objects before. I use a simple Dobsonian reflecting telescope, with a Telrad and 10x optical finder scope, but without setting circles, goto, push-to, or any of that stuff. I used my android tablet with Sky Safari Plus to find and ID objects, along with my trusty S&T Pocket Guide.

5:50PM: I arrive exactly at sunset on top of East Hill, in Berne, NY, after a 40 minute drive west from the Albany NY area. East Hill is over 500 vertical meters higher, and the peak is one of the highest points for miles. The town of Berne has light pollution ordinances in effect, so there are absolutely no lights visible from the site. The temperature, when I get out of the car, is around freezing and dropping fast, as the earth spins me into its shadow. The winds are almost calm, skies are cloudless. In the past, gravel has been harvested here, leaving surprising flat bedrock. The summit is smooth stone, oval, and maybe 60x100m, Once you drive up the jeep road, (not trivial), it’s easy to park and set up, which I did, right in the middle of the big clearing.
5:58PM: My Teeter Dobsonian 10” is set up and fan is running. Chaise and table are set up, Messier checklist ready. I change the ski shell for a big, down jacket, and eat some snacks.
6:10PM first star spotted – Capella – at the zenith, leading to first neck-craning. I sit in chaise lounge and look for more stars. Sirius and bits of Orion are poking out in the south, and, through the trees at the edge of the hill, Jupiter has just cleared the eastern horizon. Waiting for dark, I pace off the length of the clearing as 97 big steps.
6:20PM Disconnect fan, and collimate, as I hear the first of many coyote choruses in the surrounding forests.
6:22PM Done collimating. So quick with Glatter tools, and the mirrors were close to perfectly aligned to start with.
6:24PM I pop in my trusty Pentax XL21 and bag my first Messier of the evening – M42 –washed out in the fading daylight. Also take a quick peek at Jupiter just clearing the trees about 6 or 8 degrees up, but the image is swimming through too much atmosphere. Can glimpse two bands in clear moments of viewing. Took out XL10.5 and XW7 and switched magnifications around a bit. Toes are getting a bit nippy so I jog in place, do a few lunges and pushups. Better.
7:00PM: Now the stars are popping out fast. I swing to M31, but can’t find it. I quickly remember why I hate the awkwardness of looking through the Telrad. (If I’m alone, I usually use a green laser pointer as my 1:1 finder, mounted where the Telrad goes. It doesn’t work in the cold, however.) After this first failure (looking in the wrong place), my neck and back are feeling the twists. I then realize I’m looking in Perseus – does anyone else get confused when the constellations are inverted? I redirect my scope to 35-Andromeda, and see galaxy immediately in my finder scope. Looking through the eyepiece, I carefully identify M32 and the dimmer M110 to add to my night’s tally. Since it’s not completely dark, I’m skeptical, but I push the tube left and take quick look for M33 in Triangulum. After a few seconds of scanning the area at 60x, low and behold I got it. Sweet.
7:15PM – 8:55PM:
OK, time to get down to business, as I hear another coyote serenade with voices from different directions.  I turn on a dim red headlamp to consult with my Messier Marathon checklist (in “Pennington Field Guide order”), and I check off the few I’d seen so far tonight. Next up is M74 , another dim, face-on galaxy. It’s dark now, and I find it quickly – the brightest I’ve ever seen it. Between the dark sky, and a good mirror, the contrast is incredible. M77, the eliiptical galaxy, is easy and shows up in my finder scope. I make my way to NGC890, an awesome edge on galaxy, a bright slash, and then continue to M34, a nice, spirally open cluster, bright and shiny after the dim galaxies.
The next object is M76, the Little Dumbbell nebula, visible in the finderscope. I up the mag for this beautiful view. Then, as long as I have the 120x set up, I swing quickly over to big Jupiter, on his way up now. Still low, maybe 25 degrees up, but much better view than before, with detail in the polar bands.  Then swing the medium power right over to the globular, M79.

I kept plugging away down through the list, powering up on some of the better objects, and checking on Jove periodically. The Sky Safari app makes it very easy to find nearby objects, (but gloves off = cold hands) and I began logging NGCs in the neighborhoods of my Messier targets. All the open clusters, many of the globs, and some of the galaxies were visible in the finder, making the hunting easy. M1, the Crab Nebula, was sharp and bright, the open clusters spanning Gemini and Auriga were blazing, and the galaxies in Leo were all sharply defined.  When I hit the killer globular, M3,  I cranked up the power to 180x and sat on my stool, bedazzled. I pushed the high power over to Jupter and could now see 4 sharp bands, as well as good detail in the meandering, central equatorial bands.

9:00PM: I got in the car and shut the door, drinking warm liquids and gobbling nuts, fruit, and chocolate.
9:10PM: I notice some low clouds in the east. Not a big deal, but the whole sky is lightened up, because those clouds are over Albany and brightly lit.  I take a quick jog around the clearing to warm up and then get back to the task at hand. The list moves into the Ursa Major area and I get an excellent view of the Whirlpool galaxy, and I take time for a powered up look at M108, the Owl Nebula. Bodes Nebulae, M81 & M82 are direct vision objects in the finder, and clear as day in my Royce conical mirror at 60x. Then the list sought objects begin to branch east, and pretty soon I’m gaping at the Sombrero, M104, one of my all-time favorites. Clearly defined and sharp, it always makes my heart speed up a little.  And then I realized I was about to be thrust into the horrific tangle of galaxies that is Virgo. Go ahead, Virgo, make my day.

11:15PM: lost in Virgo
The members of the Markarian Chain of galaxies are not too hard to find and identify, once you know where to look, and you get used comparing the reference map to the Dob’s inverted view. You get M84 and M86, and you’re good to go. However, it’s been a while since I swam out into the starless, galaxy-spangled midspace of Virgo in search of M49 and M61 and their ilk. I had several star-hops that ended with frustration and a reset on Alpha-Vir or 15-Vir. One has better luck galaxy-hopping through this area of the sky, rather than star-hopping. My searches are being hindered as the clouds in the east are building and washing out the sky a bit. Determined, I push through to the end of the Virgo section, with the last few, M98, 99 & 100, up out of the main cluster, and again proving tricky. My neck is tweaked from the long, cold night of Telrad use.

12:15AM: pack it in
The skies were now approaching half-clouded and made obvious the decision to call it a night. My being tired, cold-toed-and-fingered, and sore-necked all seconded the clouds’ decision, and I quickly broke down my gear, and packed up the car.

I always wanted to do a Messier Marathon, and this was a solid attempt. I logged definite sightings of 65 Messier objects and recorded another 34 definite objects (33 NGC and one TR obj.). It has been a while since I had so much fun on a solo Astronomy outing.