MnAstro Forums

Greetings all,

This is reminder that the Mini-Messier-Marathon will take place at Cherry Grove this weekend, September 7/8. Kris Setnes, our resident weather-whiz, will be letting you know about the predictions as we get closer. As I will be out of town, Kristopher will also be calling Friday's GO/NO GO, and depending upon Friday, Saturday's GO/NO GO. Kristopher will also be coordinating the 4M competition. For those who want to be preparing ahead of time, you will find the 4M info (regarding the sheets and such) here at: http://www.mnastro.org/mini-messier-marathon/ .

Many thanks to Kris for picking up the ball on this one!

I want to take a moment to invite everybody to CGO this weekend (weather pending, of course) to the MAS Mini Messier Marathon. This is a great event for both experienced and beginner members with telescopes. Although this is a member star party, it is perfectly acceptable to bring a friend to share the experience with. It just makes a terrible spectator event.

I hope to be at Thursday's MAS meeting to promote the 4M.

I'm not a "weather-whiz" as Jerry suggests. I'll do my best with interpreting the weather sites though.

Let me know if there are questions.

Oh... I almost forgot. You can win MAS prizes by competing.

I would like to know if anybody is going that is near the Blaine area but closer to lino lakes? I would like to see if I can get a ride. I can pay you gas or food or both.

I'm not quite ready to call this yet, but Saturday still looks better than Friday. The Clear Outside chart is probably the least forgiving of tonight's forecast, but shows the difference well. I will wait for the forecast to update before making an official call.


Also, a question came up about GO-TO and PUSH-TO. Although this has been done different ways in the past, it is hard to have a level playing field without splitting prize pools. I'm going to officially declare GO-TO and PUSH-TO computers off limits for the 2018 4M. (Sorry Matt) Sky tracking and motorized slewing is fine. The spirit of the competition is for YOU to find the object, not the TELESCOPE to find the object. Telescopes with these features are fine to use, you just need to make the final hops to the object yourself.

I was planning on using my go to scope but did not plan on entering the contest plus my red dot finder broke this week.

Hope that is ok?

This is a GO for Saturday night.

The forecast is not terrible for tonight either though depending on what forecast you look at, so I expect others might be at CGO both nights.

We will have the 4M on Saturday night.

sandconp wrote: ↑Fri Sep 07, 2018 12:40 pm I was planning on using my go to scope but did not plan on entering the contest plus my red dot finder broke this week.

Hope that is ok?

Of course. The 4M isn't a true Messier Marathon in the truest sense of the word. It's a chance to get out and see as many objects as you can see in the fall, and to perhaps have a little competition while doing so! Go-to is certainly fine, although Jerry or Kris would have to decide if you're eligible to win the contest using go-to.

I ordered a Telrad Red Dot Finder from Starizona on Friday to replace the cheap one that came with my scope. I have seen a few others in the club that use it and they highly recommend it. To be honest, I have not taking the time to manually find things except for planets but I am very interested in learning how since I am only been in this hobby for 10 months. I have a star chart and I use Sky Safari to map out the sky so it does not look that difficult to find the objects. I am very interested in finding things on my own but I just haven't taken the time to learn it and that's my own fault because I was trying to do too much at once like trying to jump into imaging so soon. It's time to for me to step back and take a break with imaging and focus on what I can learn on about where objects are located in the sky.

Here is the "official" observing list for tonight's event. I will print and bring several, but you can also print your own.


I listed these in object number order instead of using any optimized observing order. We'll see how that goes this year. The rise/set times and max altitude information is all calculated for tonight at CGO. I think my source might be overly optimistic. Only a few objects are listed as "not visible."

I made a statement about GO-TO and PUSH TO being off limits. I don't want that to prevent anybody from coming to CGO tonight though. I just want the first, second, and third prizes to be awarded on an even playing field. Based on what Steve said, let's rephrase the rule to be "GO-TO and PUSH-TO are off limit for prizes."

I expect to take some heat about calling last night incorrectly. The forecast changed about an hour or so after we decided this should be Saturday instead of Friday. (I'm a rookie.) There is good news though. The weather looks outstanding for tonight!

setnes wrote: ↑Sat Sep 08, 2018 3:34 pm I expect to take some heat about calling last night incorrectly. The forecast changed about an hour or so after we decided this should be Saturday instead of Friday. (I'm a rookie.) There is good news though. The weather looks outstanding for tonight!

Now you know why we no longer perform a "go/no-go call" for regular star parties! It is all too easy to make an overly pessimistic or overly optimistic call. Anyone who has ever tried has guessed wrong at least a couple of times! It comes with the territory!

Please note the directions to CGO to avoid construction.

Thanks for putting on a great event last night, Kris! Turnout was great (lot full plus people parked on road), and the skies were beautiful. I left about 3:30 am, and only Kris and one other were still there packing up. We got a nice look at M42 through Kris’ 12.3” dob as the icing on the cake at the end. The only slight fly in the ointment was the sheriffs deputy showing up with his bright flashlight wondering what was going on. Luckily he was easily convinced we were not a bunch of ne’re-do-wells having an illicit kegger

It was an outstanding night... one of the best skies I've seen at CGO.

1st Place (49 Objects): Deane Clark
2nd Place (32 Objects): Miles Hanson
3rd Place (22 Objects): Claire Weaverling

Congratulations! I hope we can coordinate prize selection at the next MAS meeting.

In addition to the Messier objects, many of us had fun looking at comet Comet 21P/Giacobini-Zinner. We could easily make out the comet's tail.