Starship Asterisk*

Messier Marathon

Explanation: In this action scene, red night vision lights, green laser pointers, tripods and telescopes in faint silhouette surround intrepid sky gazers embarked on the 10th annual Iran Messier Marathon. Completing the marathon requires viewing all 110 objects in 18th century French astronomer Charles Messier's catalog in one glorious dusk-to-dawn observing run. As daunting as it sounds, there are often favorable weekend dates for northern hemisphere marathoners to complete the task that fall on nearly moonless nights near the spring equinox. With the Milky Way as a backdrop, this group of about 150 astronomy enthusiasts conducted their 2011 marathon on such a night in April from the desert area of Seh Qaleh, in eastern Iran. Placing your cursor over the image will map the stunning night sky above their remote and very dark observing site. Follow the green laser pointer toward the Messier catalog objects (for example, M8) near the galactic center. Astronomer and former Messier Marathon organizer Babak Tafreshi also composed Sky Gazers, a time-lapse movie of this year's event.

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The time lapse movie seems to dispay just a bit too far to the left for a good part of it. Although i don't think much is missed.

What are the lightning looking red streaks from time to time in the time lapse movie? Mr. Messier sure had his work cut out for him. It must have taken lots of time and enthusiasm to do what he did so well.

Our own Messier marathon is here, this with previous APODs being our sky: http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php? ... 05#p145105

Nice movie. And a nice picture, too.

The astronomy club I belong to was once visited by an Iranian astronomer. It was really quite interesting to hear him talk about astronomy in Iran. He showed us many lovely images of Iranian teenagers, boys and girls, observing the sky together. Most inspiring.

As for today's APOD, you knew I would say it: it's so nice to see that the so called red giant stars (like Antares) are nowhere near the color of the really red lights on the ground. The lights on the ground are red and green, but in the sky they are white, blue and yellow.

Ann

I'm in awe of people who complete a Messier Marathon - and especially so of those that do the complete list without star charts!!!

For one of these Messier Marathons, are there judges that verify a sighting of the different Messier objects?

About the time-lapse movie:
1/ In the first segment, two bright stars on the right side seem to brighten (not dim) when clouds come in between. Could that be because a fuzzy star is no longer a point source?
2/ Several streaks appear in the sky. What are they? Satellites? Meteors? Planes?

Menkent? Simbad and NED do not recognize Menkent. If this is a star name someone should be informed. hah!

alphaquad wrote:Menkent? Simbad and NED do not recognize Menkent. If this is a star name someone should be informed. hah!

Theta Centauri is a star in the constellation Centaurus. It is also called an Arabic name: Menkent ("shoulder of the Centaur"). It is an orange K-type giant with an apparent magnitude of +2.06 and is approximately 60.94 light years from Earth.

Source: Starwalk