The 2006 All-Arizona Messier Marathon is now history. It was my first ever attempt at the MM and wow am I glad I tried it.
Friday night was spent preparing for the event. My observing buddy Larry and I drove our vehicles up to Arizona City and should have been there before dark, but although we were within 1/4 mile of the site we couldn't find it, so we ended up wasting over an hour. We finally got there after dark, there were maybe 25 or 30 other people already there. After setting up the camper we unloaded the gear and observed until about midnight. Since I was exhausted from a long week at work, and wanted to make sure I had enough energy for the big event on Saturday, I got some rest.
Saturday day was spent preparing equipment, strolling around and meeting other amateurs, and generally enjoying a day of calm (which was quite nice in contrast to a hectic day at the office).
However as the day went on, it became quite windy and cloudy. By the time the sun set, there were well over 100 vehicles on site. When twilight arrived, the clouds were still there, so the first several objects on the list were either very difficult or in some cases, like M74, just plain impossible. I was using the 12" LX200GPS scope, so the Go-To feature helped an awful lot. The clouds were thick but little breaks came now and then, so in many cases it was possible to point at the object's location and wait for a brief clearing.
At times it seemed like it might clear up; at other times, the clouds became so bad that we almost lost all hope. One thing I noticed was that this star party was much quieter than many I've been to. This may be because so many observers were intensely working their lists, or it might also have been that some gave because of the clouds and called it quits. Also the field was very large so the observers were spread over a wide area.
I got a chance to meet Don Machholz, who basically invented the MM and wrote an excellent book about it. I brought my book with me and had him autograph it, and we had a nice discussion about his comet discoveries. Like many others, Don uses a simple non-computerized scope, he is able to locate the Messier objects by memory. This is an admirable skill and I hope to do the same someday, but for this time I was glad to have the help of the go-to pointing. It also helped that Larry and I have the same scope and used the same eyepiece (a Nagler 31mm Type 5) so we could compare our fields of view to confirm the objects. We also used the Ken Graun and Steven O'Meara books on the M-objects to assist in making sure we were really seeing the right thing.
By the end of the night I was very tired but had really had a lot of fun, and somehow we managed to snag 108 of the 110 Messier objects. It was a long haul; we never really took a break at all. Some marathoners take naps for a few hours but with the clouds, we found it necessary to be persistent and patient. Apparently that paid off, because it appears that we ended up with the highest count and thus got 1st place!
I didn't really intend for it to be a competition with anyone, and of course the go-to gave us a big advantage since the clouds would have made it hard for the star-hoppers to get their bearings. But it's still fun to see my name at the top of the list.
I never did get any sleep on Sunday as there were many family commitments when I arrived home. And work has kept me hopping the past couple of days so I'm still exhausted, but the excitement of the marathon is still in me. Can't wait until next year!
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