Date: Tue, Apr 6, 2010 at 6:04 AM
From: Grant Martin
Subject: 2010 messier marathon results

Hello Hartmut:
 
I saw your request for Messier Marathon results on SEDs and thought I'd send
you mine. I call mine an "Inadvertent Messier Marathon" because I went out
to characterize a telescope and wound up running a marathon.
 
I live in St. Charles Missouri and we have a special area in a public park
reserved just for Astronomy purposes:

http://www.asemonline.org/broemmelsiek-park-astronomy-site  (Longitude
-90.815 latitude 38.723)
 
This site is about 25 miles west of St Charles and 45 miles West of St.
Louis Missouri. We (Astronomical Society of Eastern Missouri - ASEM) have
two telescopes permanently installed at the park. I was checking out the
newly installed 16" f5 AltAz reflector of Jones-Bird design to see how well
it might function for a marathon. I was also checking out various charts and
techniques in preparation for a future attempt. I did not expect to attempt
a marathon that night as the weather report called for clouds later in the
evening.
 
I started observing at 8PM local time on the 17th of March and by 10 PM I
realized that the clouds were not coming and that there was a good chance I
could complete an attempt. I then turned my focus to the marathon proper and
dropped the evaluation tests.
 
I stopped just before sunrise on the 18th. I managed to easily view 106
objects. I missed M55, M72, M73, and M30 as they were lost in the light dome
of the cities of St Charles and St Louis. Unless there is an area wide power
outage on the morning of a marathon, those objects will never be seen at
that time in this place.
 
Regards - Grant Martin