May Mini Messier Marathon

[Bruce MacDonald]

Now I don't normally go for deep sky objects, as I spend most of my time under the stars observing variable stars and hunting novae. But the other night, Friday-Saturday 25-26 May 2012, was unusual for two reasons. First, it was warm enough to observe in shirtsleeves; second, the sky was unusually transparent. After I had finished my "normal" work for the night I decided to sweep up as many Messier objects as I could in Sagittarius and Scutum. These were objects I should have seen back in March during our society's annual Messier Marathon but couldn't, owing to the murky sky conditions we had on that particular night. Fortunately I have a very low southern horizon in my back garden (no tall buildings to obscure the view) so I could find these objects very easily.

Although I used a 80mm refractor to spot these, I could easily have used my 10x80 binoculars; it just happened that I had the scope already set up, with a 24mm Panoptic giving 17x magnification.

First was M22 logged at 0127 UT, which I think is one of my favourite globs, followed by the trickier glob M28 just north of lambda Sagittari, at 0132. This is a classic "fuzzy spot", not easily discerned at first, but at least it's easy to find. Then I followed the arc of nebulae from M8 (0134), M20 and M21 (0135) to the splendid Star Cloud, M24 (0136). This has got to be one of the best of the Messiers, it's just a pity it is so far south for UK observers. Moving on via M25 (0137) I reached M18 (0139), M17 (0141) and M16 (0141). The tour ended with the one object I did log on the Messier Marathon night - M11 (0142) and finally M26 (0143).

Adding in M4 and M80 in Scorpius that I had seen earlier, that made 14 objects I should have logged during the actual Marathon. Still, it's always nice to see these, some of the jewels of the night sky.

[Grunthos]

A fun read Bruce.

Thanks for posting.

Sent from my GT-I9100

[andrew63]

My southern horizon is not ideal - fair few tress. I looking forward to observe these famous objects in sagittarius and surround. Saw M4 a few months back in the scope - but not easy to observe. Hoping to have some success with my 10x50s. Thanks for posting, and as you say, pity these objects are not better placed at our latitude.

andrew