Please submit any scheduled Messier Marathon 2010 Events!
Messier Marathoners: Send me your results! (2010 or earlier)

Messier Marathon 2010

In the year 2010, March New Moon occurs on March 15.9, providing a primary opportunity weekend for Messier Marathon on March 13/14 and a secondary one on March 20/21, 2010. Because of the considerably early date, on the primary weekend it will be difficult to achieve the full 110-object score from mid-northern latitudes because of the difficulty or impossibility to see M30, while during the secondary weekend this may easier be possible from suitable latitudes and locations.

As it is always delightful to add to the Messier Marathon the observation of as many of the planets as possible, it must be noted that for 2010, Mercury and Uranus (conjunction with the sun on March 17, almost at New Moon) will be impossible, while Jupiter will be a very difficult (conjunction on February 28) and Neptune an extremely difficult morning object (conjunction on February 14 and faint).

Some comets brighter than about mag 14.0 will be visible; we will list them below from various sources (e.g., IAU's Observable Comets page, Skyhound's Comet Chasing 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 15, 2010            March 20, 2010

157P/Tritton                04:06.52 +22:40.2  12.1   04:25.39 +22:56.6  12.2
44P/Reinmuth                07:58.25 +18:04.2  10.4   07:57.54 +18:06.2  10.9
29P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 1  09:21.57 +13:11.1  15.6   09:20.05 +13:15.8  15.6  Outbursts! c. 11m
81P/Wild                    14:10.16 -06:49.2   9.4   14:12.64 -06:38.4   9.3
C/2007 Q3 Siding Spring     15:22.21 +55:34.3  10.9   15:23.30 +57:07.0  11.0
10P/Tempel 2                18:35.93 -13:33.8  12.7   18:48.70 -13:24.7  12.5
65P/Gunn                    19:28,83 -25:10.0  13.0   19:37.87 -25:08.5  12.9

For the record: Southerners with large instruments may still try to spot now-faint (mag 20.1) old friend C/1995 O1 Hale-Bopp at RA 01:33.56, Dec -83:37.4!

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 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 in their years of appearance).

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 2010

Again, we plan to announce all scheduled 2010 Messier Marathon Events here.

Please submit any scheduled events for announce here.

If you have undertaken, or participated in, a Messier Marathon, 2010 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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Hartmut Frommert
Christine Kronberg
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Last Modification: April 15, 2009