Messier Marathon

Hi all

I was just wondering if anyone in Ireland has attempted a Messier Marathon?

March, it seems, is the appropriate month to conduct a marathon, personally I don't think that it can be done from Ireland, with the likes of M6 and M7 being next to impossible to see, perhaps from the far south, Valentia Island, for example it might be just possible.

Any thoughts?

Paul

Hi Paul,

I think this was tried once before with a decent success in Tullamore during one of the Irish Astrofests (now Cosmos) in the 90's. I *think* John Flannery was one who instigated the challenge back then. It was tried around the year 2000 mark too, but bad weather got in the way.

Have you got an idea about trying it yourself this season? If you got nights like the ones we have had the past month you'd be laughing.

Seanie.

The NIAAS usually plan for one every year, but unfortunately we have not had much luck in recent times. We nearly got stuck in Killylane by snow in 2006, and 2007 at Delamont was ruined by fog. The last two years were hopeless.

The best dates this year are
March 12th-14th
April 9th-11th
April 16th-18th

It's in the back of my mind Seanie, finding an ideal location is the first problem, and of course there's the wonderful weather. I still have to check out a pontential site for the planned April/May session, if that pans out as good for a marathon attempt then maybe I'll give it some serious consideration.

In terms of equipment is a combination of scope and binos the way to go?

Paul

One location mooted before around here was a vantage point in the Slieve Bloom mountains. Another was somewhere in the Mourne Mountains in Waterford, I think.

One idea to tackle the Marathon with equipment is a properly alligned ETX-type scope, with the instrument ready in GoTo mode. Now, I don't know if that is considering cheating...



Seanie.

This has been done by a few here in the North. You can't do all 110 from this latitude but in the moonless part of March I believe 98 is possible.