[AZ-Observing] All Arizona Messier Marathon Observing Report
- From: Mike Wiles <mikewilesaz@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: AZ-Observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2012 12:23:29 -0700
Hello all,
Do you ever have one of those trips to the desert where you come home
excited about the realization that there's so many cool things to do and
see in this world that there's just no hope you'll ever get it all done?
That's how I came home after this year's All Arizona Messier Marathon at
the Hovatter airstrip. Though the sky conditions for the marathon itself
were sketchy at best on Saturday night, it was still a wonderful night at a
star party far from the city lights. A number of people did their own
impromptu marathon on Friday night in anticipation of Saturday's weather
and did quite well from my understanding. With this sort of thing
happening two years in a row, perhaps it's time to expand the marathon to a
two night affair. What's that you say? You want to make the star party
last longer? I'm in favor.
For me, the universe and everyday life cooperated to the point that I was
able to make the sprint westward on Wednesday night and arrived at the site
late in the evening twilight. It took me longer than usual having to setup
in the dark but I was still a day ahead of my planned schedule so I have no
complaints. I drift aligned my CGE mount and found that I had managed to
set the scope down within about 8 arc minutes of the pole. This was surely
a good omen. Lazy clouds that had drifted over the observing site
continued to dissipate as the night wore on and by the time I was ready to
fire up the CCD camera conditions were good enough to get some photons
copied to the hard drive. I caught M101 high in the sky and followed it to
the meridian and past for 6 hours. Since I'm currently working on the east
coast timezone....fatigue caught up to me quickly and I "imaged via alarm
clock" waking up for the meridian flip and to shut down the scope early the
next morning.
Thursday saw the arrival of more and more people for the star party eager
to take advantage of the sky conditions. It was great to be able to catch
up with friends I hadn't seen in some time and nearly ate myself into
oblivion on the wonderful spaghetti dinner prepared by Joe and Pat Goss.
Conditions Thursday night were a breezy and a touch cloudy as the sun ran
for the western horizon but calmed and cleared in typical "Antennas
fashion" at sunset. By the end of twilight I renewed my CCD assault on the
sky and wandered the observing field stealing visual observations through
the telescopes of others wherever I could. Paul Knauth was kind enough to
share the eyepiece of his 25" Obsession and some of the interacting galaxy
pairs/groups that were on his observing list. As I climbed the ladder he
described what would be a "dim pair of galaxies". 14th magnitude galaxies
with direct vision is just astounding to me. The amount of detail coughed
up by that telescope just blows me away every time Paul allows us to take a
peek. The view of M101 with a 13mm Ethos on that scope completely filled
the field of view. The field is so large in the 100º eyepieces that one
has to actually move their head around the field to see the edges...and
M101 went right to the edge in every direction. Without question the
finest view I've ever had of that object.
Friday came and clouds threatened to shut down festivities. Astronomers
arrived in a constant stream as the afternoon progressed. John Rhodes from
TeleVue setup next to me and it was difficult not to drool on the beautiful
5" NP127 refractor that he had setup just a few feet away. I appreciate
the manufacturer reps that take the time to come out to our larger star
parties and hope that our event can draw more of them in the future. A big
star party just isn't "complete" until someone shows up with a giant
refractor and sets it up in the middle of the observing field. This year
it was an 8" f/12 D&G refractor that fulfilled that role. I managed to get
a view of R Leporis and M3 through the scope but got so distracted with all
the other things going on around the observing field that I never got back
for a proper planetary view through the massive beast. Friday also saw the
arrival of Don Machholz - co-creator of the Messier Marathon and discoverer
of more comets than I've actually seen in my lifetime. I spoke with him
again on Saturday and he did indeed put another completed "marathon from
memory" under his belt on Friday night. Steve Dodder arrived with the
legendary binocular chair in tow. If ever there is something that looks
like it came out of mad scientist's lab - it's the binocular chair. So
it's Friday afternoon, we have a giant refractor, the originator of the
Messier Marathon and astronomers scattered across nearly a square mile of
desert. The only thing missing was a star filled sky.
As the sun set, high thin clouds continued to move in over the observing
field. For those attempting a marathon in Friday this created some
difficulties on the early objects because it came from the west. I have
heard since that it didn't prevent dedicated astronomers from completing
the marathon. Some observers declared the night a loss and turned in
early. Anyone who has spent more than about 10 minutes with me at an
observing site has undoubtedly heard me comment on the absolute need to
challenge the conventional wisdom in this hobby. More often than not, I
have been rewarded richly by doing just that. While the conventional
wisdom camp got a good night of sleep, the rest of us got an incredible
night under the stars that did nothing but improve as the clock ticked
away. My records show that I took my first image at 8:01pm on Friday...and
though I lost a few subexposures to clouds I did run the camera the entire
night. By midnight, the sky had cleared completely and I captured 5.5
hours of imagery on M51 that is among the highest quality I've ever
captured.
We awoke Saturday to a cloudy sky and a poor forecast. I'm sad to say that
this did indeed continue and much of Saturday night was spent catching up
with friends old and new. There were still a good number of people who
stuck it out and even attempted to complete the marathon with some level of
success. Kevin Legore of Woodland Hills Telescope was in attendance and
spent much of the evening trying to bait me into spending large sums of
money on equipment. He nearly succeeded. Without question, he's a walking
encyclopedia of astronomy gear knowledge and it was great to hang out with
him for much of the night. At about 2am a group of us congregated on the
east side of the field and some of the group enjoyed a frosty beverage. At
3:30am I went to bed. I packed up and came home on Sunday after briefly
exploring the remains of a ghost town north of the site.
If you're still with me after this long - thanks for reading my long winded
observing report. This star party was another beauty, despite the weather
on Saturday and I can't wait until the next one in October. I hope to see
all of you there. The end result of this year's marathon for me is a
number of great memories and over 22 hours of CCD data ready for
processing. Stay tuned for the finished images.
Mike
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