Messier Marathon Madness

Last night was the All-Arizona Messier Marathon. All amateur astronomers know about Charles Messier - a 1700s French comet hunter who, besides discovering over a dozen comets, catalogued 110 of the brightest and most spectacular nebulae, galaxies and clusters in the night time sky. It was realized about 3 decades ago that for a short period in late March, the sun was sufficiently far from them that all of the Messier Objects might be visible on a single night, and the Messier Marathon(MM) was born. The object is to observe all of the objects from sunset to sunrise. It is not a trivial undertaking - a couple of faint galaxies (M74 and M77) must be observed in evening twilight low in the west, and M30 - a star cluster must be found in the rapidly-brightening morning twilight. In between, there is a rush to observe evening objects before they set in the west, navigate your way through the dreaded Virgo cluster of galaxies (dozens of Messier objects scattered among hundreds of galaxies), and a rush to make it through the rising summer Milky Way before twilight starts.


Arizona has become the Mecca for the MM because of the high likelihood of clear skies and relatively warm spring temperatures. In addition, local amateurs were among first to champion the Messier Marathon and a local following has built up over the years. This year there were nearly 100 attempting the feat, the farthest traveling fom Albany, New York (just about the cloudy sky capital of the country!) and nearly that many just along for the evening observing. I counted myself with the latter, but Melinda was doing the competition. The rules permit computerized go-to telescopes, but her advantage was perhaps offset with only 5" of telescope aperture, relatively small for seeing all the objects.


The site is located at The Middle Of Nowhere, Arizona, about 25 miles south of Arizona City. About equal driving distance from major the metropolitan areas of Tucson and Phoenix, it unfortunately has light pollution issues from both, but has a large area to set up with good horizons in all directions.

We arrived by 5pm and got the gear set up early before visiting with our astronomical friends we only see a couple times a year. There was a meeting of marathoners explaining the "rules" right about sunset, then it was game on! Of course, with a go-to scope, where a computer aims the telescope for you - it needs to be aligned properly, which is difficult to do until you can find stars to align to. So while not really getting a late start, Melinda started out by being unable to find those first two galaxies mentioned above. I let her work on her own, while I used the 14" scope to image comet Lulin again, and take some images with a fisheye lens borrowed from Tom Polakis, who had brought it along to the star party at my request. I checked on her occasionally, but after the initial difficulty, she was tearing through the list and by 10pm was nearly halfway done! I took a self-portrait imaging the comet with the winter Milky Way hanging low in the west, and another of Melinda with Orion looking on.

Finally, about midnight, she was out of objects to observe - was waiting for them to rise in the east, so we laid down in the back of the van for a nap. When rising an hour later, some thin clouds had moved in from the south that would hound us through the rest of the night. Melinda made remarkable progress though, until M10 - evidently there was an error in the telescope data base - it kept slewing to an imaginary object below the horizon. With the clouds in the sky, it was difficult to find without aid. I eventually picked it out in binoculars, and used a laser pointer to guide her to the spot where she found it. After another nap cycle, she had less than a dozen objects to go, but also thicker clouds with which to contend. Finally it was down to the cluster M30 as twilight started in the east. If trying counted, she would have seen it, but between the clouds and growing dawn, it wasn't spotted. So with that missing entry and the two initial galaxies, she nabbed 107 of the 110 objects - a great first effort! While hoping for a small plaque to mount on the telescope (awarded to the top 3 places), at the registration table, she found out that several had seen all 110, some 109 and some 108, so she was "just out of the money" and will have to settle for a certificate. We hit the road for home and were in bed by 8:30 or so.

While she can't think of repeating it soon, another time and with a little more light gathering power and she will likely increase her count. She did great!

An Evening With Comet Lulin

There is nothing like something exciting happening in the sky to bring out bad weather. In reality, the weather hasn't been bad, just cloudy, and not really solid overcast, but just enough to spoil any real chance of imaging the bright comet that currently graces our sky.

So blue sky finally broke through today, and even though it was a "school night" I had to go out and image. The comet is very nearly closest to the earth at about 40 million miles and also at opposition to the sun, so it is observable all night long. It is also moving very quickly - about 5 degrees per day, providing a good chance to do some sequences showing it's motion.

Melinda had to work tonight, but Ed, a friend visiting from Saskatchewan, joined me for the trip out near Kitt Peak. We arrived after dark, and I hurried to set up the 14" Celestron and Hyperstar for imaging. After that was finally going, I set up a second camera on a portable mount with telephoto lens. So here are the quick and dirty results - no stacking, no tricks other than some brightness and contrast adjustments. The first one is with the 200mm telephoto - 4 minutes exposure at F/3.2 on the Canon XSi. It shows a pretty wide field with the star Rho Leonis to the upper right, north is up. The closer view is with the 14" Celestron + Hyperstar = about 660mm focal length at F/1.9. It is a 1 minute exposure with the Canon 20Da camera. I've got a few frames to play with stacking to reduce noise, or make some short movie sequences, but I've only got a minute before going off to sleep, so this is what you get.

Recent reports describe the comet as a Q-tip, but Ed thought it looked like a lit match, and I might have to agree with him. Lulin was visible to the unaided eye, but wasn't blindingly so. The view through the 9X63 binoculars closely resembled the telephoto view, though color was hard for me to detect. Over the course of a couple hours, I thought I could definitely see it getting closer to Rho, so naked eye detection of motion was easy too. By the way, there are some spectacular images at Spaceweather.com. Get out and see it first hand if you get a chance - I'll likely be doing the same!

Latest Comet Lulin

Well, the weekend is over and while we've been busy, it is hard to point to accomplishments - just running all the time it seems! Astro-club meeting Friday night, mostly finished our hallway painting project and wired new lighting Saturday, dinner with buddy Valerie Saturday night, early Sunday matinee ("Coraline" in 3-D) more shopping at Home Depot, and transporting junk to the front of the house for bulk trash pickup this week. Nothing much exciting to blog about, though when Melinda finishes the trim painting and electrical tomorrow, you will likely see the finished product.

The enclosed photos were taken last Tuesday morning, 3 February when an early morning bathroom visit turned into an astrophoto trip at 3am! I wanted to catch the comet with my 14" Celestron (and Hyperstar attachment), and those predawn objects are hard to catch without a concerted effort. I made a 40 minute trip to the SE side of town off Highway 83 towards Sonoita to get some dark sky in the south. After my 3am wake up, I was exposing 2 hours later...

The first exposure is a quick snapshot of the globular cluster Omega Centauri. Clearing the southern horizon by less than 10 degrees, it was spotted right at the meridian and was an easy target to make sure everything was working. And with 30 second exposures, I didn't have to worry about finding a guide star - the mount was good enough for exposures that short. So while the total exposure is only 2.5 minutes, it still gives an impression of the amazing views that globulars provide. Omega is thought to contain several million stars and is certainly the largest globular cluster in our galaxy. Some astronomers think it may be the remnant of a small galaxy long ago consumed by the Milky Way Galaxy. While visible to the naked eye to the south here in Arizona, it is not visible in the Midwest because it never rises above the horizon.

After those brief exposures of the cluster, it was time to get on the Comet. As mentioned previously, Comet Lulin was discovered in July of 2007 and is currently as close to the sun as it will get. In the next couple weeks it will get another factor of 2 closer to the earth, so is expected to get brighter and on 26 February, will be opposite the sun and visible all night, when it should be barely visible to the naked eye from a dark sky site.

It was readily visible in binoculars, but not detectable to the naked eye. Even a brief exposure with the camera showed the characteristic green color (from dissociated carbon molecules). Because of the comet's motion, when stacking these 6 -2 minute exposures, the stars appear to move. While generally only the brightest comets show a tail, interestingly, this one shows 2, and apparently in opposite directions! The skinny tail to the right is the ion tail being pushed straight back from the comet by the solar wind. The tail to the left are heavier dust particles lagging back along the comets path as it moves, and as we are very nearly in the comet's orbital plane, see this tail apparently pointing towards the sun.

When the comet passes about 40 million miles away from us on the 26th, unfortunately, with the sun directly behind us, the ion tail will disappear behind the comet, but the dust tail may still be visible. Check back in a little less than 3 weeks!

Wednesday Morning's Comet Lulin

While I'm not a morning person, I do suffer from a bit of insomnia and sometimes have a hard time getting back to sleep after a 4am bathroom visit. But these days it may be a good thing as comet 2007N3 Lulin is in prime observing position then.

Since my only shot of it was with a normal lens last Friday, was time to get it in a darker sky. Interestingly, we've been getting lots of hits as word of Lulin gets out - google has pointed lots of people to the blog wanting to see comet pictures. Unfortunately, this will not be a spectacular apparition, but will be brighter than your average comet, as it should attain naked eye visibility (barely!) in a month or so.

So this morning at 5am, I set up my little tracking mount and shot the comet with a 200mm lens (Canon XSi w/Canon 80-200 zoom at F/3.2 - stack of 10 -30 second exposures). Even with Tucson's sky glow and the high clouds that blew through, I didn't have to use imagination that I saw it in binoculars, it was definitely there, but still small and fuzzy. It was readily apparent in the camera display, but with only the 8" focal length, no details like those showing up at Spaceweather.com's gallery. With good weather in the forecast, I will need to head out towards the weekend with the 14" Celestron... Fortunately, though currently almost 100 million miles away, in 4 weeks it will be a mere 40 million miles, thus will appear about 2.5 times bigger and at least that much brighter. For those of you who want to try finding it in binoculars to the upper right of Scorpius the next few mornings, check out the Sky and Telescope article. Good hunting!

Comet Lulin

I've heard reports of a comet that is brightening a little more than expected. Realize that a "bright" comet is not necessarily easy to see in the sky - this one is currently barely a binocular object from Tucson, but should attain naked eye visibility in a month or so from a dark sky. It will not be bright with a long tail like Comets Hyakutake or Hale-Bopp, but it will be visible all night as it appears exactly opposite the sun the end of February.

Comet Lulin (C/2007N3) was discovered in July of 2007 by Lin Chisheng as part of the Lulin Sky Survey. It was closest to the sun just a day or two ago, but it will slowly come closer to the earth, being closest to us on 24 February when it will be 36 million miles from us.

I left my warm bed this morning in an attempt to spot it in binoculars and get a photo. It is a morning object above the "claws" of Scorpius. There was a bright moon only 40 degrees away, and the sky glow of town make it hard to spot, but it was visible via "averted imagination" with binoculars. It showed up pretty easily in this photo taken with the Canon XSi. This is a stack of 10 - 30 second exposures with a 50mm lens at F/2.8. Still pretty small, but it will get brighter, and rise earlier in the next month.

Interestingly, it's orbital inclination is nearly 180 degrees, so will always appear near the ecliptic. Since comets sometimes show "anti-tails" as we cross the orbital plane, it already shows similar effects since we will be living in it's orbital plane as it brightens. Check out the photo gallery and finder charts at Spaceweather.Com's Lulin section.

Also be sure to check out our more recent posts from February 3rd, and from February 25th.