FreeLists / az-observing / [AZ-Observing] Re: 2004 All Arizona Messier Marathon

[Jeff Hopkins <phxjeff@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

>Jeff, here's some information from the SAC web page about the marathon -
>Observe it with your eye through the main eyepiece of your telescope.
>It clearly states you must observe through the main eyepiece of
>telescope, the marathon is an observational event and not a photography
>event.
>The Messier Marathon Observer Results page
>http://www.seds.org/messier/xtra/marathon/results.html has information
>about a photographic marathon in 1988 where Tim Hunter and Dan Knauss
>got 84 plus 19 NGC/IC objects from southeastern Arizona.
>
>If you like, give photography a try and let us know of your results.  If
>you observe the object through the main eyepiece of telescope composing
>image then that should count as an observation.  Hope this doesn't open
>a big can of worms, but at this time the eyepiece observation counts,
>even if it is to set up a photograph.  Just remember it is the
>observation that counts and not the photo.
>
>Hope this helps,
>aj
>
Thanks AJ.

Actually what I had planned on doing is using a C-8 SCT with 6.3 
reducer, flip mirror/eyepiece/filter and camera. All objects would be 
found/centered using the eyepiece. So in addition to all images 
captured there would be a direct eyepiece observation too.

What could be better than an image to verify the observation?

Thanks for the link. It was interesting to see the history and 
successes. Also interesting was the huge success of SAC during 2003. 
More people succeeded in 2003 at the SAC meet than all the rest of 
the world since this began. Either AZ skies and observers are super 
or extremely lucky.

It would certainly be nice to have hard copy images to back claims 
then noone  could dispute whether that was an eyepiece smudge or a 
real observation.

I also found it interesting that noone else seemed to have tried 
digital imaging. With the big popularity of the web cameras, 2004 may 
prove different.

Jeff
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Jeff Hopkins
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