All Arizona Messier Marathon, '08

[Astroman]

Here I am at the 2008 All Arizona Messier Marathon with my 20" F/4.3 and a bridge I built of popsicle sticks. (It's a long story.)

I arrived at the site south of Arizona City on Friday afternoon. There were a couple people there already. I picked my usual spot and set up.

The plan for the weekend was to do a thorough run through with the new 20" F/4.3 Newt on a tracking platform. This is an entirely new setup to me, though the scope has been around for a while-something like 10 years. I wanted to try each and every eyepiece I had, with every Barlow and all that. I have a number of them, 23 to be exact, and wanted to weed out the less good ones and settle on a combination of magnifications and qualities I could split into public use and private use, if possible. I also needed to learn how to find stuff without setting circles and any quirks particular to the tracking platform, such as how long it will track before needing to be reset. It was the first field collimation of the newt, finder scope and Telrad, too, so right down to the very basics up through advanced star hopping.

It was a big task, but my excitement over doing it was plenty. Though I've run large scopes for relatively short amounts of time as a substitute for the owner, this would be the first time I'd be running my own big scope. 8)

At dusk, I switched on the laser collimator and got to work. Not too much trouble there, as I'd done it at home, but I was somewhat surprised how far off it was after the journey to the site. (It's about 65 miles from my doorstep, and the last 12 are over dirt roads. That done, I waited for it to get dark enough for collimating finder etc. When I first found Sirius and turned on the platform and poked around with the main until I found it. I put in a high power EP and did a quick check of platform alignment. Not too bad with just "plunking" it dow, and rough pointing with a compass. (That's reassuring.) Sirius solidly in the EP, I adjusted the Telrad and finally the 80mm finder scope. Some wobble in the finder mount, but I can check that later.

I figured I'd try for M45 first, being big and bright. I poked around the vicinity, (it's still pretty light out), and actually found it in the finder. At 80mm F/4 and with a 26mm Ortho EP, I get a FOV of about 3 degrees, and the entire Pleiades was easily visible, even with a very bright sky. "This is gonna be fun", I says to myself, says I. I put the 56mm Super Plossl in the mains and I see almost the entire Pleiades except the bottom of the question mark! Holy Cow! That's over a degree and a half FOV! In a 20" scope. "This is gonna be really fun!" I says to myself! To the closest person, I say, "Is it dark yet?"

Well, twilight finally ends, and I'm already on M42, shuffling in EP's like mad and taking notes. It quickly occurs to me that each note says, "Wow! What a great view!" Or, "That's a keeper!" Hmmm, let's go to the "cheap" set-the Celestron Plossl set I got for $99. Uh-oh. They all look great, too! The e and f stars in the trapezium are both easy. details in the nebula are stark and the Running Man is well defined, even without a filter. Now what?

Ok, on to something a bit more challenging. It's fully dark now. I'll try M1. THAT should cause some trouble, right? I mean, it's barlely visible in the C8, and not much better in the 10". Uh, now that's very nice with the 40mm Optilux. Down through the EP's, it just gets better. With the 7mm Ortho, my socks flew off. Not for the last time! That's 312x. Normally, as the magnification increases, the image quality degrades. This is entirely dependant on the aperture, if you ignore seeing and collimation.

I think, ok, it responds well with lots of power. Let's try Saturn.

I start with the 56mm again and work my way down. One less pair of socks. With the 7mm Ortho, they went bye-bye. When I put in the 4.8mm Nagler, (455x), and then the 2.5mm Lanthanum, (874x), the moments of good seeing were simply astounding. I backed off a bit to a 6mm Plossl, (the cheap ones, 364x), 7 moons were easy. The planet was bright, but so was the crepe ring. Cassinni was good in steady moents and the overall effect was three dimensional. Unbelievable!

Yeah, this is gonna be really, really fun!

M78 in Orion was next, being unremarkable in the C8. Plenty of detail in the 20, but still not too impressive. Oh well, you can't win them all.

On to something distant. M104 seemed a good idea. At 240x, the dust lane was prominent, as was the brighter areas above it. Now, I've seen M104 many times, and mostly, the view stops at the dust lane. I rarely see the rest of the galaxy above it. Cranking up the power to 312x, individual globulars are visible, as well as mottling in the dark lane and even in the bright parts!

It went on and on like that, with object after object astonishing me, and stealing my socks, until I took a quick break. I thought it was around 11 pm, but turned out to be 2 am! No wonder my knees hurt!

I went to bed, hoping I could rest enough to run the marathon next day.

Answer, yes.

I drove home and picked up Rosie, who'd been working the night before and filled her in on the way. The usual preparations were made in time, as night fell later on.

One hundred-8 objects were deemed "possible" this night, but we were just shooting for as many as possible. M74 and M77 were well below our horizon, M31,32 and 110, along with M76 were in a cloud bank to the northwest. I managed to pick them up in the am, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

I won't go into too much detail, because this is getting long already. The early part of the marathon was difficult, as I learned how to star hop to some not-so-well-known objects, and resetting the platform after it stopped tracking. A lot of time was "wasted" just ogling and calling friends over to look, but it didn't really matter. Open clusters were amazing, globulars had loads of detail and galaxies were beautifully subtle in detail.

We normally observe through the Virgo Cluster around 10 or 11 pm, but didn't get there until midnight. Coma Berenices and Virgo were on the zenith and meridian respectively, and made it difficult to navigate the "Dob Hole" at the zenith. I decided to skip the Virgo cluster, with a bit of a tear in my eye. There were just too many galaxies in each FOV to be certain I was pointing at the object I though I was. In the C8, I'd use the setting circles to verify which Virgo galaxy I was on and star, or galaxy hop from there. The really faint galaxies are not seen or dimly detected, and so cause little confusion. With the 20", it was nearly impossible to determine for sure which galaxy I was starting on. So, rather than waste several hours thrashing around, I decided to postpone Virgo until I had more practice. We took our customary nap instead.

I woke suddenly at 2:30am. Most unusual, as I generally wake every half-hour or so to make sure we don't miss anything. We got up and restarted observing.

Ophiuchus holds many very tiny globular clusters, which happen to be my favorite type of object. In the C8, they're delightful little puffs of ancient light. In the 20", they are amazingly detailed clumps of hundreds of thousands of stars, each with they're own character. It took waaay too much time to get through them and move on. I happened to look to the east, and saw to my horror, the twilight beginning! I quickly swept over to M20, M8, M23, M16, 17, 24, 11, 69, 70, and 27, before the dawn broke and took away the stars. I reset the platform and centerd Jupiter at 242x and left it. People began bringing marathon results to me, so I sat in my chair and counted our own tally.

We ended up with 76 objects-some 8 less than our lowest tally, and that without trying too hard. I felt like I worked my tail off, up and down the ladder, pull the scope here, push it over there, sweep around all over the place.

I'm fairly happy with that count, nonetheless. Given the new scope, new method of location, new views and all that. Practice makes perfect my friends, and I'll be finding more time to do that, after seeinf just what can be seen with some serious aperture! I wouldn't call it "aperture fever" yet, but I do have something of a rash developing...

8)

[Whippy]

I wouldn't call it "aperture fever" yet, but I do have something of a rash developing...

Just try not to scratch it too much!!

Superb report Steve, a Messier marathon isn't something us Brits really don't consider due to our Northerly latitude. Maybe one day though .

Tony...

[daz]

Fantastic report AM - Damn, I wish I was there!!

Friend of mine has a 20" obsession and I have had the pleasure of looking through it - all it needs are your skies!!!!

[themos]

I enjoyed that report, thank you! I am thinking, I have a 4", a 12", what's next?

[Beyond_Vision]

A great report Steve it sounds like you had a fantastic time despite not bagging all the Messiers that you had intended.

Regards

Kevin

[Andrew*]

Sounds wonderful. Wholeheartedly envious!

Thanks for a cracking report - looks like you're going to love that scope.

Andrew

[Tiny]

Great report. Wow - what a scope! Strangely I was saying to a chap today the I would love to have a 20" Obsession. I got the impression he though I meant something else entirely but your report backs up my idea of the scope I'd get if I won the lottery!

[Sam]

Great report! I got worn out just reading it - you had a very busy time!

[jgs001]

Great report, I'm jealous, and it sounds like a real stunner of a scope

[Astroman]

Thanks, I'm glad you enjoyed the (rather lengthy) report.

The scope has some operational problems. It's hard to move in both alt and az, especially from the top of a ladder. But the glass is amazing. Actually, the glass has a couple major chips out of it, too. There's a small one, maybe .5cm², and another close to 10cm², a result of a bathtub cleaning incident. Both of which can be seen in a star test. There's some drive vibration issues, and secondary spider problems. Not to mention some assembly problems, issues with the truss tubes and secondary cage links. But these are all reasons I got the offer for the scope and not someone "off the street". Most result from the original assembly of the kit, which was performed by the same person responsible for the assembly of the 8" F/4 binocular chair I've mentioned elsewhere. My familiarity of his methods prequalified me, if you will, to take charge of this scope and all its foibles.

I very much look forward to learning to aim the thing, all things considered, and I feel I could do some real damage to people on the edge of interest in astronomy. This is, after all, my goal-to affect as many people with the astronomy bug as I possible can, and make them aware of the scourge of light pollution and wasteful human folly.

There's quite a lot I left out of this report. But I think the main spirit is there. Seeing the sky as it is supposed to appear is a wonder to behold!

[FLO]

Wow! That really was an excellent report Steve

Reeeeally wish I was there!!

[barkis]

Just like being there Steve. Wonderful stuff. That aperture plus Arizona spells bliss to me.

You had better invest in a Hydrualic lift to the eyepiece, or you are going to wear yourself out.

Thanks you very much for a great report.

Ron.

[Astronut]

Brilliant :salute: I don't think I would have been able to take a nap though in a site as good as that :cyclopsani: Coma Berenices at zenith :pale: It must be great to be so far south.

[thing]

I think you really live in Aberdeen and have a pair of 8x50's. I could only dream of having a night like that. Great report.

[spacemonkey]

A very interesting report, thanks.

I think you did the right thing skipping the "virgo clutter" (no spelling mistake). During our society marathon night at the start of march, we had a variety of scopes from a 70mm Pronto to a 20" Obsession with Argo Navis, but the general impression was that the most useful size for a pure messier marathon was around 4" - 5", as all you see, particularly in the Coma/Virgo area, is the M's. Obviously aperture rules for 99% of general observing and going deep, deep sky, but when all you're after is the best and brightest, and don't want to be distracted, stick to what Messier used to discover them.

Regards, Dave

[Astroman]

Astronut: I'd never make it all night if I didn't nap, at least a little bit. I suppose if it was my first time under skies like ours it'd be tough, so I get your point.

Thing: Where's Aberdeen? Smallest binocs I have are 8x30, so you're close. No, I'm having some fun rediscovering all my old friends with a monster lightbucket.

Spacemonkey: It wasn't much of a choice, as navigating the Virgo Clutter, (I like that one!), was out of the question, given the location in the "Dob hole" and the time of night. I'll practice some and tackle it next year, though. I agree that a smaller aperture is better through Virgo, but I'm imagining all the surprises I'll have when successful! Phew! Talk about tons of galaxies! :shock: 8)

Thanks for the kind words, everyone. I really do think about you blokes when I go out, just hoping to share them with some of you, someday.