From: Willie Strickland Subject: Messier Marathon results 2005 Hi, I recently found your page and wanted to pass on my results from my first and second attempt at the Messier Marathon. I was sick during the dark part of the month in March which prevented my planned attempt then. So in April I made two attempts, both at the observing field at the Eagle Eye Observatory of the Austin Astronomical Society. http://cleardarksky.com/c/EagleEObsTXkey.html 30°53'28" N 98°25'34" W UTC-6 I used a 10" Orion Dob & Pennington's Messier Marathon book in addition to Equinox planatarium software and Astroplanner to record the observations. I am a member of both the Central Texas Astronomical Society and the Austin Astronomical Society. http://www.centexastronomy.org/index.htm http://www.austinastro.org/ I will be happy to send you the logs if you want them. 4-7-2005 80 observed -------- I had to drive 2.5 hours and was late arriving so I got setup about 830pm. There was a thin cloud layer off to the west which obscured about the first 5-10 degs above the horizon so I didnt get any of the twilight items. Seeing was poor most of the time, but occasionally improved. Transparency was very good until about 1 am and then it deteriorated to fair to good. Never saw any clouds over the field until just before sunrise. Didnt get any of the early morning items either. Had lots of fun. Galaxies were particularly hard in the early morning hours as transparency had deteriorated. Looking forward to trying again sometime. All-in-all a very satisfying experience. Well it was a blast. My fingers are numb because I couldnt find my gloves and I thought it wouldnt be too bad. It is 36 degs right now. I need something warm. 710am and time to go to bed. 4-11-2005 107 observed -------- Well, my wife let me make a second attempt at the Messier Marathon last night since the weather was so nice. Transparency was good-excellent all night, seeing was fair to good, wind was light until about 3-4am when it picked up a bit. I was the only one on the field. I was able to observe and log 107 Messier items with my Orion 10". Only M74, M77 & M33 eluded me. I dont really think it would have been possible to observe them with any scope as they were very close to the setting sun. I missed M31, M32 & M110 in the evening but was able to observe them just before sunrise. It was very satisfying, went a lot smoother than the first effort.