To have two pristine observing weekends back to back is a rare thing in this country and normally the weather seems to know there is something special planned and makes an extra effort to rain on the parade. Not so this time. For each of the weekends we have fantastic skies from dust till dawn and so we made the absolute most of it.
Location for the sessions was Knockalough in Clare our new observing site. Perched on a small peninsula at the lakeside we enjoy Bortle 3 skies with an SQM of 21.71.
While some of us have done 'all nighters' before and understood the affects this would have on the body and mind, the Messier Marathon all nighter is in a different league. The term 'Marathon' is not there as some cute alliteration, it really is a test of endurance of difficult observing at the beginning and end along with the cold. Simply put, you need to train for this! Our first Marathon night, while long - we didn't last the pace and by 3AM we had packed up. 68 objects seen in total was not a bad first attempt.
The next 3 sessions were true 'all nighters' and while some came in and out of the race, others stayed the course. Their reward aside from a nice sunrise was to build on each weekend's successes and bag more objects each time. Until through sheer determination on the last session, in the cold light of dawn, Dave Lillis bagged his one hundredth Messier object and closed out the Marathon(s) until next year. Well done Dave!
Until next year... clear skies!
Observing report by D. Lillis.
