M53Rodgers 2003 Messier Marathon observing report
Wow!
What a night. Dave, Jeff and I met at Fazollis. After dinner we
drove to Greasy Ridge. Don joined us there about 20-30 min after
we'd arrived.
We headed up route 7, turned at 553 in Crownsville and followed the
road as it narrowed and then turned in to gravel in a span of about
5 miles. At the "T" intersection (Cemetery) we turned right and
headed down to the lower field. This spot is about 800-1000 feet
above sea level and is high enough to avoid the dew found down by
the Ohio River. It was muddy though. The ground kind of hung on to your feet and
did not let go. Schlorp Schlorp Schlorp.
We set up, Jeff for photography, the rest of us to observe. Dave
had is refractor built first and got an early start on tracking down
the Messier objects. He was to the north, Jeff was just south of
him, Don was to the West and I was to the South East.
I 'd injured my shoulder so I brought along the 10" f5.6 dob which
I had sitting on an equatorial platform to allow tracking. it
was 'tricked out with a correct image 90 degree finder and a telrad.
I was set to star hop. The newly added front end and rear end tube
baffles help contrast a lot. I chose either a 31 or 32 mm EP to used
to search for objects - this gives me 44-45x.
I'd adopted the strategy of low/medium power
- I get nearly a 2
degree FOV at 44x with the 31mm 2" EP which was great for finding
things. It was good practice at star hopping. I tried to see as many
objects in the 50mm finder as I could (8x, 4 degree FOV). Maybe we
should do a binocular Messier marathon too! Often there was not
much more time to observe the object. It was more like check the
chart, search, check the chart search or star hop, find, confirm -
on to the next object.
At first I used a list from sky tools, but its recommendations
seemed to be "off" as to which objects to go after first so I
switched to the Sky and Telescope MM checklist (it is on the web
site and the link will work again after I fix it - front page does
not recognize all of the old web site pages and I need to manually
fix any broken links).
After all the recent cloudy weather we were blessed by a clear
night with steady, transparent and relatively "dry" sky.
At first I recorded short descriptions of the objects: M79 (tight
globular), M1 (bright), M38 (sparse bright), M37 (tight rich), M41
(bright large), M50 (sparse) then as I tried to "speed up" my
search I stopped recording details. Many objects were greeted as old
friend: the ring, the dumbbell, M46 with its planetary nebula (yes
this was seen at 45x!). others required checking Dave's messier
object book. Fortunately he'd brought it along so we had a reference
to check on the objects that we were unsure of.
At times Dave, Don, Jeff and I would trade views in each others
scopes. At other times such as the frenzied tour of the Virgo
cluster galaxies we stayed at our own scopes. it was interesting to
note the fine contrast of objects such as the M51 galaxy in Dave's
TV101 and in my 10" dob. We were using similar magnifications and
this aided the comparisons. His scope edged mine in contrast, mine
edged his in image brightness. At times the views in Don's excelled
those in mine, but my shorter focal length afforded me a larger FOV
which made finding objects easier and in Leo and Virgo allowed me to
view several galaxies as doubles or triples. Very nice views.
I like the combo of the telrad and the correct image finder. bright
objects were found with the telrad - perhaps with a quick check in
the finder. Others required the finder to fine tune the position or
star hop to the next object. Star hopping in Virgo is much easier
when the finder view matches that of the chart.
I plowed through the "early evening objects" which were fairly easy
to find in spite of the moon which did not set until late (?10:30-
11:00?) M33 was quite a challenge though. The early objects include
many clusters and these tolerated the moon quite well. As the evening
progressed the galaxies in Ursa Major and Leo fell in ones, twos and
threes. After a brief warm up with galaxies in Coma Berenices it was
time to turn to the Virgo cluster -ah Virgo - this is where Messier
Marathons become a challenge. As it approaches midnight one tires.
The star hopping is difficult. There are many non Messier objects to
cause confusion. Often one must back track to confirm ones position.
No question the hardest part of the evening. Finishing Virgo I hit
the globulars in Hercules, as well as the objects in Cygnus and
Lyrae.
I paused to allow the sky to turn. In the post 12:30 interval I got
out my new CCD imager, the SAC 8. Nothing went right. The computer
battery died, I unplugged cables in the dark with my feet, the
declination drive ceased to operate, etc. I got one picture in 1.5-2
hours. I put it away.
M53
M81
Somewhere about this time Dave ran out of battery power and lost
his dew heaters. he had to finish the evening without electricity,
swapping EP to keep them dew free.
I'd spent a little more time on this then I should have. now it was
time to play catch up. The globulars in Ophiuchus fell one by one.
Then finding M11 and m26 I star hopped down the Milky Way as Scorpius
and Sagittarius slowly rose. The Swan Nebula, The Lagoon, the Trifid
all in their splendor. Then checking every so often I scratched off
the objects in Sagittarius.
Finally dawn and sky glow ended the evening. M2, 72, 73, 30, 75, 30
remained unfound. At the start of the evening I failed to find M77.
I know that I was in the right area for M74 but I'm not sure that I
saw it so it also goes uncounted.
The total, 102 of 110.
We all started to pack up. Then we had a little excitement as we
had to extricate our cars from the muddy field. Jeff required a
little push to get him going. We ended the evening with the
traditional victory breakfast at Tudor's and then headed home.
Although we encountered no skunks, several
times were hear the
barking of dogs and the howling of coyotes. Once it sounded as though
they'd had a successful hunt.
So that's how it was.
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