If you have undertaken. Or participated in, a Messier Marathon, 2023 or earlier, if not already done so, pleae send me your or your group's results, or the link to your results page, for inclusion in our Messier Marathon Results page!
Deepsky enthusiasts can look for additional clusters, nebulae, and galaxies. While you can certainly pick and observe whatever you like, we also provide a list of additional deepsky objects to select from (also available with data).
It is always delightful to add to the Messier Marathon the observation of as many of the planets as possible. This year, some of them will be very close to their conjunctions: Mercury, Saturn and Neptune will be impossible on both dates, while bright Venus, Jupiter, Mars and with some difficulty Uranus may all be spotted in the evening sky, and faint Pluto in the morning.
Some comets brighter than about mag 14.0 will be visible; we will list them below from various sources (e.g., Skyhound's Comet Chasing page, Seiichi Yoshida's Visual Comet lists for the northern and southern hemisphere, and the Fachgruppe Kometen list):
Comet RA (2000.0) Dec mag RA (2000.0) Dec mag March 19, 2023 March 26, 2023 C/2020 V2 (ZTF) 02 00 01.6 +35 38 59 10.8 02 05 38.0 +33 43 11 10.8 El. 47/40 C/2021 Y1 (ATLAS) 03 40 34.5 -18 32 55 12.1 03 48 28.0 -19 21 29 12.1 El. 58/56 C/2022 E3 (ZTF) 04 44 48.4 -05 12 39 10.1 04 48 41.3 -06 38 46 10.6 29P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 1 06 18 17.2 +28 05 11 15.7 06 19 59.7 +27 55 09 15.7 outbursts ~11m C/2019 U5 (PanSTARRS) 12 19 10.9 -01 07 03 12.2 12 03 50.4 -01 24 14 12.2 364P/PanSTARRS 18 14 46 40.5 +28 27 00 13.6 15 42 51.1 +31 13 37 12.9 C/2019 T4 (ATLAS) 15 44 45.7 +10 27 18 15.0 15 44 29.3 +11 48 06 15.0 81P/Wild 2 17 24 30.6 -19 03 33 11.8 17 33 29.2 -19 00 18 11.8 96P/Machholz 1 20 19 10.6 -07 51 25 15.1 20 20 10.1 -08 09 19 15.7 El. 53/60 -- remember Don Machholz! C/2022 A2 (PanSTARRS) 23 21 29.1 +46 35 35 13.8 23 37 11.8 +45 03 20 13.9 El. 47/44Observers in the southern hemispher may also turn to these three comets:
C/2017 K2 (PanSTARRS) 03 10 22.8 -46 53 40 6.7 03 29 16.9 -42 43 26 6.8 El. 63/62 C/2019 L3 (ATLAS) 09 07 41.0 -34 30 51 14.9 09 05 04.7 -34 05 49 15.0 C/2020 K1 (PanSTARRS) 19 53 49.4 -40 27 34 13.1 20 01 59.1 -42 29 50 13.0Note that occasionally comets become bright shortly (like Hyakutake in 1996, Hale-Bopp in 1997, Ikeya-Zhang and Utsunomiya in 2002), so check back for possible updates shortly before Marathon date. Also occasionally, a supernova of brightness available to amateur telesopes may have flashed up be spottable in time (like SN 1998S in NGC 3877, SN 2002ap in M74, SN 2006X in M100, SN 2012aw in M95, and SN 2014J in M82 in their years of appearance).
This year, of the "first" four minor planets, only bright (1) Ceres (all night) and (2) Pallas (evening) will be in considerable observing situation. (3) Juno will be faint and at only 37 and 34 deg elongation from the Sun on these occasions, while (4) Vesta will be practically impossible at only 20 and 16 deg, respectively. For those who want to try these objects, data for the two weekends in question are as follows:
Planet RA (2000.0) Dec mag RA (2000.0) Dec mag March 19, 2023 March 26, 2023 (1) Ceres 12 29 53.9 +15 14 39 6.9 12 23 53.2 +15 47 14 6.9 (2) Pallas 06 49 26.2 -08 29 14 8.1 06 57 10.0 -06 01 36 8.2 (3) Juno 02 17 52.2 +04 51 02 9.7 02 33 06.6 +06 04 19 9.7 El. 37/34 (4) Vesta 01 10 49.7 +01 58 39 8.4 01 22 28.8 +03 14 25 8.4 El. 20/16Moreover, meteors from various showers may occur, and depending on your location, you may be able to observe the International Space Station, ISS.
Please send me any results of your Messier Marathon for inclusion in our Messier Marathon Results page!
Last Modification: March 25, 2023