From: AJ Crayon
Subject: 2011 All Arizona Messier Marathon

                          2012 All Arizona Messier Marathon

The marathon was held at the same site as last year.  We call it the 
Hovatter Airstrip, which are dirt runways used back in the 1940's.  
There are no buildings or even a wind sock on the grounds.  The two 
runways are slightly overgrown with bushes.  No commercial airliner 
of today would even chance a landing there.

The skies were magnificent two nights before the marathon.  The night 
before they became cloudy but much good observing was done.  After 
this the weather went from bad to worse.  Yet for the 20th year better 
weather was hoped for.  For the morning of the marathon there were 37 
vehicles, counted by Steve Coe, and around 2:00pm that number had 
dropped to 15.  Then, around 4:00pm more started to arrive and by 
sunset the count, again from Steve Coe, was up to 35.  Guess there 
are those of us that will show up for astronomy under any reasonably 
bad weather conditions.

By the time the marathon started the skies were mostly cloudy and 
remained that way until midnight.  After that the skies were 
completely covered with clouds.  That's awful, just plain awful.

For the actual marathon there were 14 observers that turned in a 
check list.  Seems we were schooled again on how to reach high counts 
during cloudy weather.  For the second bad weather marathon in a row 
Jimmy Ray found the most with 97.  Second place found Jack Jones and 
George Robinson with 93 each.  In third place were Don Machholz, who 
has now completed 47 Messier Marathons, and David Trogan.  The next 
7 observers had counts in the 60's.  These, seeming peculiar, count 
ranges are easily explained.  Those of us with counts in the 60's 
slept when the skies became completely cloudy.  The other 5 stayed 
up and waited for openings to appear, whence they bagged whatever 
objects were available.  We call these openings sucker holes.  Guess 
that doesn't apply here.

As far as the super nova in M95, SN2012aw, only David Trogan and myself 
reported its sighting.

One question to be answered was the 5 objects turned in by one of SAC's 
premier observer, Joe Goss.  The count is attributed to the number of 
people walking by wanting to see something in his telescope and someone 
predicting we would be luck to get 5 objects due to the weather.  
Otherwise Joe was working on the carbon star list from the Astronomical 
League.

We also need to let everyone know that, prior to the All Arizona Messier 
Marathon, both Don Machholz and George Robinson did a Messier Marathon 
of their own on the Friday night Saturday morning before where they both 
found all 110 objects.

The clouds also impacted those wishing to take images for the marathon 
and only 3 wound up doing so.  Congratulations to them.

Next year the marathon will be held in the same place and will be 
coordinated by my good friend Rick Tejera.

2012 All Arizona Messier Marathon co-ordinator
AJ Crayon - acrayon@cox.net