Please submit any scheduled Messier Marathon 2008 Events!
Messier Marathoners: Send me your results! (2008 or earlier)
  • 2008 Messier Marathon Results

    Messier Marathon 2008

    In the year 2008, Full Moon will occur on March 21, 2008, thus ruining this optimal date for many sites for the Messier Marathon, but leaving two options: The first in early March, and the second near the end of March or early April. The first option with the weekend of March 8-9, 2008 is a secondary one for most latitudes, while the primary option, on the weekend of March 29-30, 2008, offers a good option for "mid-northern" latitudes to hunt down all 110 objects. Note however that for low latitudes, the first date will be the better option.

    The 2008 Messier Marathon will perhaps be one of the last occasions to combine a nine-planet marathon with the Messier event, but Neptune will be extremely difficult if at all possible, Uranus also difficult in the morning. Some comets brighter than about mag 14.0 may be visible; we will list them below from various sources (e.g., IAU's Observable Comets page, Gary Kronk's list of current comets and the Fachgruppe Kometen list):

    Comet                       RA  (2000.0)  Dec  mag    RA  (2000.0)  Dec  mag
                                    March 10, 2008            March 30, 2008
    
    C/2008 C1 (Chen-Gao) 03:08.49 +50:38.2 12.0 04:41.92 +36:11.0 11.7 46P/Wirtanen 03:54.84 +28:53.4 9.9 05:39.70 +34:35.4 10.9 17P/Holmes 04:02.97 +37:34.6 04:32.89 +36:50.7 29P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 1 05:48.93 +29:07.3 15.6 05:55.16 +28:40.0 15.7 Outbursts! (c. 13m) C/2007 T1 (McNaught) 05:59.90 -28:47.4 13.5 06:13.03 -10:30.7 14.8 C/2007 B2 (Skiff) 12:39.56 +05:58.0 13.2 12:25.19 +04:44.4 13.0 C/2007 W1 (Boattini) 12:41.86 -14:15.5 12.5 12:18.49 -17:04.3 10.1 C/2007 G1 (LINEAR) 18:16.93 -03:45.3 14.1 18:21.04 -05:28.6 13.6
    Those south enough can observe some of the following also:
    8P/Tuttle                   03:52.59 -56:15.4   9.7   04:43.17 -60:02.5  11.2
    C/2008 A1 (McNaught)        05:16.68 -40:41.9  13.8   05:11.70 -37:53.4  13.4
    C/2006 Q1 (McNaught)        09:27.17 -45:52.2  11.6   09:25.96 -39:03.7  11.4
    
    For the record: Southerners with large instruments may still try to spot now-faint (mag 19.3) old friend C/1995 O1 Hale-Bopp at RA 02:02.84, Dec -83:17.6 (March 10) and RA 02:20.50, Dec -82 53.7 (March 30), respectively!

    Note that occasionally comets become bright shortly (like Hyakutake in 1996, Ikeya-Zhang and Utsunomiya in 2002), so check back for possible updates shortly before Marathon date.

    Also, meteors from various showers may occur, and depending on your location, you may be able to observe the International Space Station, ISS.

    Messier Marathon Events 2008

    Again, we plan to announce all scheduled 2008 Messier Marathon Events here. Please submit any scheduled events for announce here.

    If you have undertaken, or participated in, a Messier Marathon, 2008 or earlier, if not already done so, please send me your or your group's results, or the link to your results page, for inclusion in our Messier Marathon Results page!


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    Christine Kronberg
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    Last Modification: April 1, 2008