Messier Marathon 2007

Spring is time for the annual Messier Marathon. The scheduled date is Saturday March 17 in the overflow parking lot at Henry Coe State Park. We have also reserved the area for Friday night.

By a quirk of fate all of Messier’s original list of objects are visible during March of each year. Since this year’s event is being held in mid instead of late March you will get a few additional minutes of darkness at sunset and before sunrise. This may make it possible to get a couple of the objects you have not seen in the past.

The Marathon may strike many as Type A behavior taken to an extreme. While there is an element of that it is also great experience that can really help a beginner learn to efficiently use his scope. That was certainly my experience.

I don’t recommend a Marathon to “see” all of the Messier objects. The timeline dictates that you will not spend enough time on many objects to do anything more than identify them and move on. Having to locate all of the objects in one evening will force you to work efficiently. Almost all of the objects are easily located - if your technique is good. So the main reason I recommend the marathon, especially for beginners, is to practice efficiently finding stuff. Once you can do a marathon you will be able to find anything within the limits of your scope!

Many beginners quake at the prospect of traversing the Virgo galaxy cluster. It basically comes down to having the correct tools. A couple of years ago I scripted the entire marathon using my planetarium program Sky Map Pro. Last year I took that work and converted it into a set of charts and instructions. These charts provide wide angle overviews of each segment of the marathon and finder charts for each object. Where necessary more detailed charts are provided that give detailed instruction on how to move your scope through crowded fields. These charts are available at www.robhawley.net/mm

This year I added two additional charts. If you have the charts from 2006 you can just down load the new charts.

Messier Marathon Prep Beginner Astronomy Class

This year I will also teach a preparation class as a special edition of our Beginning Astronomy Class on March 9 at 7:30 PM. Paper copies of my charts will be available for cost (under $10) at the class for anyone who is interested.

- RH