Please submit any scheduled Messier Marathon 2008 Events!
Messier Marathoners: Send me your results! (2008 or earlier)

Messier Marathon 2008

In the year 2008, Full Moon will occur on March 21, 2008, thus ruining this optimal date for many sites for the Messier Marathon, but leaving two options: The first in early March, and the second near the end of March or early April. The first option with the weekend of March 8-9, 2008 is a secondary one for most latitudes, while the primary option, on the weekend of March 29-30, 2008, offers a good option for "mid-northern" latitudes to hunt down all 110 objects. Note however that for low latitudes, the first date will be the better option.

The 2008 Messier Marathon will perhaps be one of the last occasions to combine a nine-planet marathon with the Messier event, but Neptune will be extremely difficult if at all possible, Uranus also difficult in the morning. Some comets brighter than about mag 14.0 may be visible; we will list them below from various sources (e.g., IAU's Observable Comets page, Gary Kronk's list of current comets and the Fachgruppe Kometen list):

Comet                         RA  (2000.0)  Dec  mag  
                                  March 21, 2008

For the record: Southerners with large instruments may still try to spot now-faint (mag 18.9) old friend C/1995 O1 Hale-Bopp at RA 02:30.89, Dec -82:39.5!

Note that occasionally comets become bright shortly (like Hyakutake in 1996, Ikeya-Zhang and Utsunomiya in 2002), so check back for possible updates shortly before Marathon date.

Also, meteors from various showers may occur, and depending on your location, you may be able to observe the International Space Station, ISS.

Messier Marathon Events 2008

Again, we plan to announce all scheduled 2008 Messier Marathon Events here.

On the behalf of the Sociedad Astronomica de Sonora Carl Sagan (SASCS) of Hermosillo Sonora Mexico, Dr. Salvador Aguirre is organizing the 2008 Messier Marathon, scheduled for March 29/30, 2008, at location Lat: 29:19:10N, Long: 110:49:2 W.
The 2008 All Arizona Messier Marathon is scheduled for April 5/6, 2008. This event is sponsored again by the Saguaro Astronomy Club (SAC) (for the 14th time), and will be held again at the site south of Arizona City.

Please submit any scheduled events for announce here.

If you have undertaken, or participated in, a Messier Marathon, 2008 or earlier, if not already done so, please send me your or your group's results, or the link to your results page, for inclusion in our Messier Marathon Results page!

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Hartmut Frommert
Christine Kronberg
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Last Modification: January 2, 2008