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My memories of the Messier marathon. Weather! We were blessed by a miracle this year. The skies in the Ohio Valley opened up for our 2nd annual Messier marathon. Forecasts were not good up until 24 hours within the start of the marathon. Skies were clear all night. I would rate the conditions: transparency 7 and seeing as a 7 - not too bad. Conditions remained good until twilight. This is our 2nd straight year of great Messier marathon weather. You should come out next year and enjoy. The site: This was the first night for our Greasy Ridge strip mine site. The area is a huge reclaimed strip mine located just inside of Gallia county. The drive is 40 minutes from the 31st bridge in Huntington. We drove into one of the large fields and setup camp. The skies are very nice in the north, northwest, east, and west. There is a small light dome to the northeast from Point Pleasant/Gallipolis and the Huntington light dome is south. The Huntington dome hugs the horizon and never really climbs higher than 10 degrees into the sky. I believe the elevation at the site is around 1100 feet. Great horizon views in all directions. Absolutely no local lights can be seen - well, if you really try you can see one through some trees that is probably a mile away. There were about 4 cars that drove up the nearest access road during the night. The people and scopes: Dave and his TeleVue 101, Larry and his orange tube C8 and 16x70 Fuji's, Don and the OVAS 10" Cave, Rodger and his 20" Obsession, and I had my AP 130EDT. The views: I photographed M66/65/NGC 3628 and M13. So that was the extent of my marathon. Next year I am going to do marathon viewing exclusively (maybe I shouldn't commit to that statement 100%). Dave really kicked some serious Messier butt by bagging 103 objects with the 101. The contrast and wide field of the 101 really made the Messier hunt a joy for him. I viewed some of the Virgo cluster through his scope and they were outstanding. Rodger bagged 97 M's with the big gun. Unbelievable views of globulars and galaxies were had all night. I especially recall the view of M82 and M63. The dark blotches in the core of M82 were just like that in a photograph. M63 showed detail that I am used to seeing in a photograph. I believe at one time we had about 8 galaxies in the same field of view in the Virgo cluster. It was a challenge to figure out which one was the Messier object. Larry logged about 30 objects. He shared with me one of the best views of M51 I have ever had. The view was a testament to the nice skies in the north. The spiral structure was more extended than I have ever seen and the interacting galaxy and spiral arm were very obvious. Don recorded more Messiers in one night than I had seen in my first year of observing. I believe he recorded around 20 M's that he found on his own. The 10" Cave gave me some memorable views of M14 and other globular clusters. Breakfast! The gang celebrated the end of the marathon like all highly trained athletes - by consuming a big breakfast at the local Proctorville Tudor's Biscut World. It was a great event and I hope more OVAS members will join us in 2002. Jeff Ball
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