From: Bill Ferris Newsgroups: sci.astro.amateur Subject: Messier Marathon report Date: 02 Apr 2000 06:49:55 GMT Flagstaff, Arizona, is a great place to observe but it's not perfect. The nighttime temps can get a little crisp during marathon season. Last year, I'd made a mental note to check out the area west of Flagstaff along Hwy 89 for a winter observing site. This two-laner runs roughly north-south from Ash Fork to Prescott and there are many open grassy areas visible from the highway. I headed out this afternoon about 4 PM and found a nice location for the marathon. It's a large, open, grassy field at 5,200 feet elevation. The area is called Putney Flat. This site has excellent access to the sky all around the horizon. Some sky glow from Ash Fork, Williams, Flagstaff, Prescott and (possibly) Sedona was visible. Winds were gusty until twilight when things calmed quite a bit. A quick binocular tour after twilight ended revealed M51, M101, M81 and M82--all pretty obvious--through my 10x50s. It's a nice site and about 5 to 10 degrees warmer than my usual dark sky observing location on Anderson Mesa near Flagstaff. Anyway, I was all set to run the marathon until M74 escaped detection. It set behind a distant hill at about 8:06 PM. I'd been tracking M74's location for 10 minutes before losing it behind the hill. According to MegaStar, M74 doesn't set from this latitude until 8:18 PM on April 1. The hill must have obscured about 3 degrees of the horizon. If I'd been observing two or three days prior to April 1, I believe I would have bagged it. Last Saturday, March 25, I observed M74 from Anderson Mesa at 7:44 PM. Well, a Messier marathon requires a certain mindset. My desire to observe went "pffffft!" the second M74 slid below the horizon. Since I'd gotten 109 at last year's All-AZ event, the prospect of an all night session with no hope of getting all 110 didn't really appeal to me. So, I packed up and drove home. BTW, I was using my 10-inch Newtonian. Bill Ferris "Cosmic Voyage: The Online Resource for Amateur Astronomers" URL: http://members.aol.com/billferris/index.html