Messier Marathon Month Live Stream Sat 5th March

[John Pickering]

Kia ora koutou katoa everyone,

It’s Messier Marathon March in the northern hemisphere at least.  However, last year I was surprised how many Messier objects I could see.  With my Unistellar hat on I am going to attempt to host a virtual star party this Saturday from 9:30pm.  The FB live invite is https://fb.me/e/1qmD0KV6Y.  Anyone welcome to join (if you think you could live stream too, then all the better).

Yours totally unprepared,

John

[Preetha Sreedharan]

Cool…be happy to give it a go or at least watch how one undertakes a messier marathon 🤩

[Rob Glassey]

Awesome idea!

I was actually thinking of the Messier marathon today. I’ve tried it twice before, once thwarted by weather part way through, then another time, having got through everything up to and including the virgo cluster, I looked at how many objects were in the Saggitarius region, and the time, and decided I probably couldn’t get through it all before dawn, and I found sleep to be the more tempting alternative 🙂 I was attempting to observe every object with binos, a dob, and image them all as well – probably a bit ambitious!

There’s actually quite a lot that we can get from here, and this time of year is the best time here too. 96 of the 110 Messier objects are visible from Christchurch, with 90 visible on the evening of 1st April, and 82 visible this weekend, with 6 being pretty low and challenging, so call it 76 this weekend.

Next month is better for us with the earlier sunset and later sunrise, and the dawn objects are high in the sky, while the dusk objects get the advantage of the earlier sunset.

Stellarium is very good for planning. You can select just the Messier objects (press F4, and under DSO’s, tick only “M”. Tick “labels and markers” and pull the sliders to max).

M45 (Matariki) is quick and easy as the sky starts to get dark, you can then try M35 (open cluster) while the sky is still bright, and maybe the lower open clusters M36, M37 & M38 before the sky is dark enough to get M77 (mag 8.9 galaxy). Then find  the Crab nebula, M1. After that the pressure is off a bit. Go for Orion, Canis Major and Puppis before Cancer reaches meridian and M44 and M67 are best. After than you are into the many Leo and Virgo galaxies. Then it’s into the brighter clusters of Scorpius and Saggitarius as it gets into the wee hours of the morning. Around 4am you might get M94 and M63 a few degrees above the northern horizon. You need to start on Scorpius & Saggatarius low and early, as there is a lot to see there and there is not much time before dawn (that’s what caught me out). Just before dawn you’re chasing the last objects in Saggitarius and Scutum before moving on to M72, M73 and M30 in Capricorn, and M13 in Hercules, all low in the dawn sky. These will be higher in April, and by then you might be able to get the next predawn objects M57, M56, M27, M71, M15 and M2, and maybe even M92 very low on the northern horizon. M29 is also there very low and very challenging in a bright dawn sky, but it is a bright open cluster.

Messier objects that are visible at other times of the year (October/November), but not now, are M31, M32, M33, M34, M110, and M74.

14 Messier objects are never visible from Christchurch.

The Virgo galaxies are where it is easy to get lost and waste time when finding them manually, it helps to practice observing these objects beforehand. But a goto EV scope should have no touble and should be quite enjoyable as there are quite a few good gems and some great variety there.

 

But really, it’s fun to just pick off a more managable number and enjoy the views 🙂

I like the idea of four “Messier Mini-thons” in March, June, August and October, with 20-30 objects each evening. Maybe that’s a Messier Tetrathon?

 

Rob

[Preetha Sreedharan]

The more messier-athons the better one gets I suppose…thanks for the how-to guide…may need to head out to CAS for this and see how many I can find

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