Messier Marathon 2003

Date: Feb. 28th / Mar. 1st; Dusk to dawn (nautical twilight)
Site: Ebenwaldhöhe, Lower Austria (Lat.: 47° 58' 52" North; Long.: 15° 41' 38" East; Alt.: 1019m)
Observer: Wolfgang "Howdii" Howurek
Instrument: Ceravolo HD145 (5.7" f/6 Maksutov-Newtonian) on Vixen SP-DX mount ("unplugged"); 7x50 finder;
Standard eyepiece: TeleVue 22mm Panoptic, yielding 40x at an exit pupil of 3.67mm.

Conditions:When I arrived at the observing site I found my astronomy partner Walter Koprolin on the southern end of the parking lot, sheltered behind some trees, instead of the preplanned spot some hundred meters further back, in the clear. A stiff breeze from the west hindered us to set up there, a place with a more favourable horizon line for the Messier marathon. At this time it was cloudy, but we were in hope for the sky to clear up soon. The ground was icy and slippery, around us a snow covered landscape. The night was moderately cold at 0°C or slightly below, no dew. The sky was still partly cloudy at nightfall, but cleared up completely within the first 1.5 hours of darkness. Towards midnight the wind calmed down. It came back at moderate strength for a while after midnight, and calmed down again before dawn. Just at the beginning of dawn clouds moved in from the west and north. By the start of nautical twilight there was only a small gap of clear sky in the southeast left.
The sky was very dark at the zenith, limiting at 6.3 mag; dark also in the south and southwest, somewhat brighter in the west, moderately bright in the northwest, brightening from north to northeast (Vienna is in the northeast), still bright in the east, darkening to the southeast. In the morning hours the rising Milky Way was only weakly visible against the northeastern and eastern sky.
The landscape horizon is far from ideal at the observing site: some trees low in the north, a hill in the northeast; only in the east there is a deep view down to the horizon; from southeast to south there is an inclining skyline, with a "dip" just before south; due to the south is the Hochstaff mountain (1305m); just beyond south there is another, deeper "dip" in the horizon line; high and nearby trees are blocking the view to the southwest; some trees are in the west and northwest.

Object sequence: I used a list downloaded from the Web, compiled by Hartmut Frommert, based on work of Don Machholz. My own object sequence differs strongly because of the clouds in the first hours of the night and also the unfavourable skyline in the northeast, southeast and south. It may be looking confusing, though. I didn't have a watch handy to log the observing time for each object. I also wasn't well prepared for this marathon, and I had no help. Walter was busy with astrophotography, and took only some looks through the eyepiece. He left in the early morning hours. For the rest of the time (after observing M83) until dawn I was alone.

Missing objects: In the evening sky M74 and M77 were blocked by trees in the west, however, clouds made it even impossible to try some hunting between the trees. M79 would have been possible but was blocked by clouds.
Let's analyze the situation in the morning sky, midways between astronomical and nautical twilight. M6 and M7 were surely blocked from view by the raised landscape horizon in the south. M54, M70 and M69 were also blocked from view, however, they would have been only very low above the horizon. M75, M55 and M30 were definitely below the horizon. M2 was very low in the east, but again clouds moved in shortly after I had spotted M15, so I had no chance to try for M2. M72 and M73 were just about rising at that time.

Summary: A total of 96 Messier objects is not that bad for my first Messier marathon under somewhat restricted conditions. Could I have done better? No, I think not. I got all objects that were possible. But I fell short of 4 objects from my expectation. However, I have seen what a rush it would be to hunt for the last objects against beginning dawn. To observe the objects when they are as high in the sky as possible is one thing. To spot the objects as early as possible, just after climbing above the horizon, is definitely another story.
Additionally I observed some 20 other objects, that were just "in the way" or in near vicinity of Messier targets. I had plenty of time after the Virgo cluster. I could have done many more other observations, but I wanted to save my concentration and energy for the rest of the night.
The southernmost objects on my list were "treetop grazers". I had to wait for them to rise above the landscape horizon. Some I couldn't fetch as early as they got near the "dip" to the east of the Hochstaff mountain. Some I had to fish out between the treetops, some even partly obstructed by trees.

After years of observing, it was my first Messier marathon. It was quite right to bring me back to astronomy after some months of abstinence. And it was fun. I wouldn't have believed it before, but once you've been hit by the bug, you want to try again and do better. So, perhaps I will try another Messier marathon at the next new moon, which will be more favourable for the morning sky objects, but harder for some evening sky objects.

#owdii