Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2001 19:40:27 EST
From: J.A. Bein
To: spider
Subject: Marathon results


Here are my reports for 2000 and so far 2001.  They were written for the
NOVAC listserv so the site details will not make much sense to other than
NOVAC members.

3/05?/2000:
Hi all,
The weather and my schedule both cooperated last night.  I arrived at Savage
at 5:15 and got set up well before sundown.  Leaving my scope, I backtracked
to Hearttrouble ln.  and pulled over in a spot that allowed me to watch the
sunset.  As the sun went down I got out my binoculars and began to scan the
sky.  As soon as Jupiter popped out I was picking out stars, but no faint
fuzzies.  Soon I could make out Orion, Auriga, Taurus, Perseus, and
Cassiopea.  I was getting a bit nervous as I figured that if I stayed too
long before returning to the scope that  I would lose more than just M77 and
M74.  I also discovered that I had left my red light at home!  As I returned
to Savage I tried not to think about missing the first objects and the
problem of reading charts by white light.  Instead I focused on how cloud
free the sky was and how long it had been since I had gotten to spend a night
out observing without the threat of frostbite.  I logged the objects that I
had picked up with the binoculars and aimed the scope towards Andromeda.  It
was right in the middle of the tree.  Back to the binoculars and I could see
M31 from up by the house.  I could also see M33 in Triangulum-and isn't that
Aries right there?  Hey! M74 and M77 are still up!!.  I quickly moved my
scope up next to the house and picked up all of the early objects.  I then
moved back to the Tom Dietz memorial patio corner and got the objects in
Orion, Gemini, Auriga, on up to the Virgo cluster by 9:40.  Leo was still
pretty low and Arcturus was just visible down in the muck so I decided to
take a snack break and allow things to rotate a bit.  I entered the Virgo
zone at 10:20 and emerged out the other side at 11:04.   For the first time
in my personal marathon history I took a nap from 11:30 to 3:00.  I highly
recommend it.  The morning objects proved the hardest.  The skyglow to the
east and the trees made everything difficult.  For most of the objects in
Saggitarius I grabbed binoculars and walked until I had a clear view.  But
the objects near the bottom of the constellation (M69,M70,M54) did not
exactly jump out at me.  I could not find M55, or M75 no matter how I tried.
As sunrise approached I tried to figure out where capricorn was.  I could see
Altair, Delphinus and the water jar, but nothing showed underneath to the
naked eye.  Using binoculars I frantically scanned the sky hoping that I
could pick up one or two more objects by luck.  I spotted a globular near a
lone dim star.  It turned out to be an NGC above Fomalhaut but it gave me
hope that I might yet spot something.  I again tried to approximate where
Capricorn was and I scanned the area with my telescope.  There it was! a lone 
globular with a bright star just next to it.  I scanned left and right hoping
that I had the pair M72, M73 but nothing else showed.  It must be M30.  My
charts confirmed it and at 5:45 I had my last object.  104 out of 110.

3/19/01:
Well I wasn't planning on doing a marathon last night, but with the weather
forecast looking so dismal I decided to head up to Savage at the last minute.
I arrived just before 7:00 and set up like I was pit stopping a car in the
Indy 500. I managed to get all of the early evening objects even though I
had placed my scope so that M31 and M77 were in trees, and M74 was at the
roof line of the house. Once I got to M79 in Lepus I took the time to put on
my coat, say hello to Tom Dietz and Steve Blake, and move my scope down next
to the flagstone patio. Everything went pretty smoothly from there and I was
ready for the galaxies in Virgo and Coma Berenices by 10:00. I found my way
through in about an hour and was ready to warm up in my Ford portable warming
chamber and let the sky rotate to bring the objects in Ophiuchus and Scorpio
into range. I hopped out and got a few objects every hour or so until I ran
into a real problem. At about 3:00 it became apparent that the light from a
waning crescent moon was just enough, when combined with ambient light
pollution, to obliterate just about every star in the southern part of the
sky that contained all of the remaining objects. I usually find objects by
approximating the position with a telrad and then scanning under low power.
Ideally I can use stars reasonably close to the object. At the end of the
night I had to use Altair and Enif to triangulate on M72! The objects in
Sagittarius and Scutum were not too hard, even though Sagittarius was in a
tree. Once I found the first one I could just hop to the next. I couldn't
find M55 and I did not even try for M75 or M30. I packed it in at 5:30 with
a total of 107/110. A new personal best. I hear my pillow calling me so I
gotta go.

Yours,
J. Bein