[AZ-Observing] Marathon: Early Report

The night turned out to be about 75% cloudy, but that didn't stop quite a few 
of us from running the marathon.  Somebody counted 110 or so vehicles, which 
isn't bad for such an obviously murky night.  I heard a couple reports of 107, 
but no perfect scores yet.  I would not be dubious, though, as somebody could 
have looked at M74 or M30 at the right instant as it passed between clouds.

Here's my personal account.  I saw 105 Messier objects last night.  It was one 
my the most challenging nights of observing.

I failed to see M74, but it was in the clear for a few minutes when it was dark 
enough, so maybe a larger aperture than 70mm would have pulled it in.  In the 
early evening, it was apparent that the north was going to go away fast, so I 
worked on sweeping up all of the object of high declination through Ursa Major 
before even going after Orion through Puppis, where it was very clear.  M33 was 
extremely difficult and fleeting, and I bet a lot of folks missed it.  I wonder 
if anybody got M31 and its two companions.  I had to wait until morning, when I 
failed to see it again.

I did all of my viewing at 18x in the Pronto, so some objects like M76 took 
real effort to detect.  And some galaxies between clouds were tougher than I 
was expecting.  All of the open clusters in Messiers catalogue were beautimous 
in the little refractor.

At 10:20, it had cleared completely, and stayed good for a couple hours, when I 
was able to cruise through the galaxies in Virgo and Coma.  At 11:00, I had 61 
objects, and napped through 3:00, when I was greeted by more mostly cloudy.  I 
took on the last dozen objects in a strange order, dictated entirely by local 
clearings.  I managed to see M73 but not M72, doing the same for M55, while 
missing M75.  I was able to get M72 and M75 just before twilight, and just 
barely.

I could believe that M30 also became visible at some point, but I was messing 
with M72 at the time and didn't get to it.  So I wound up with 105, missing 
M74, M31, M32, M110, and M30.  Glad I made the trip, as it was an enjoyable 
night.

I hope some other observers had a chance to point the scope at the rising 
crescent moon, which looked great when the bands of clouds were passing in 
front of it.

Tom

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