Messier Marathon practice

In preparation for the Messier Marathon at Larry's house, I wanted to run a practice one, too see what setup is like, to see how long it takes to get align from when the first stars come out until you get your first slew.

I setup on the 3rd floor deck at the apartment in Provincetown. I knew it would be wobbly and I knew I'd have light pollution problems but I figured I'd give it a try, why not? I had a black fleece to use as a hood if I needed it.

Sirius was the first star out, of course, and then I think Procyon and soon I had several. Sadly, I did not have Polaris! I eventually found it binoculars and this let me see it naked eye. I moved the tripod and stood behind it, eyeballing Polaris. I never did it through the bore, I was in a hurry, I knew that some dusk objects would be difficult, I was especially worried about M77.

So althought that wasn't the first object on my list, I used McNish's site to print out my lists, using the Phil Harrington, Astronomy 2002 sequence.

The horizon was still in twilight when I slewed to M77. Now I knew my Goto could be off, especially my first one of the evening, but I couldn't even seen Menkar, so I knew it would be bad. For some reason I put the hood on, then I pulled up my chair and waited. I probably spent about 15-20 minutes looking for M77. Sometimes I'd stay in the same spot, sometimes I'd nudge the hand controller to move the scope a bit. When I could see the power lines through the finder scope I knew I should give up. The sky still wasn't dark yet so I moved on.

M42 and M43 were the first objects. Well, M45 was but I wanted to bag at least one naked eye so I knew I'd have to wait for that one. For almost all objects I was using my Garrett Optical 30mm wide angle 2" eyepiece. This give about 1.2 degreess field of view. I wasn't using the Siebert, I'm not sure why. Maybe I wanted to use an eyepice that I was quite familiar with? I dunno. Anyhow, did us the 22.5mm Siebert to pull in M43.

Then the fun start. I slew to the next object, check it off, repeat. If I knew I could grab an object with binoculars, I would. Why not, it was both fun and probably faster than slewing.

Look up an object, slew, check it off. I know, I know. MM purist will say it wasn't a real marathon. You know what? I don't care, I'll still buy you a beer some day. That's ok. I was enjoying myself for the most part.

Why "for the most part?" Well, this was too easy! MM is supposed to be a challenge and this wasn't a challenge at all. Slew, view, check off, repeat. It was like shooting the proverbial fish in a barrel!

I'm not going to recount all of the objects, but here are some of the ones I made notes on:

• M76 - hard!
• M48 - impressive. This was with the scope. I had had this as a binocular goal object this fall but I was foolishly feeling time pressure so I just slewed to it instead. I must revisit this one!
• M81 - Meridian flip.

I didn't note the time of the meridian flip but it seemed pretty early for me. I now need to use a hood for more of my objects. There were so many street lights I was getting reflections on my glasses!

• M82 - hard. This surprised me, but I guess it had to do with the conditions. Lots of light and I was essentially never dark adapted because of that. M82 should not be a hard object.
• M108 - hard. Needed the hood and averted vision. Since I was so far away from the alignment stars, I realigned on Mizar.
• M97 - easy with the hood
• M109 - hood and averted
• M40 - failed to split with the binoculars

Arghhhh, I was moving my chair and I kicked the tripod, moving it! Oh, Rags will be laughing now. But, I didn't panic, I just realign on one star and the gotos weren't all that bad.

• M63 - a fishing boat started up in the harbor, I'm now getting a very strong diesel smell. Normally, I'd hate that but it fits in with observing from a fishing village.
• M51 - Saw both parts. Feeling less time pressure now I gave this a good 10 minutes looking for more detail with the 22.5mm Siebert. No detail was visible.

M95. Ok, here it goes. The dim spirals. I didn't have anything centered in the eyepiece but I could see something nearby. But that's isn't enough to confirm it for me. My paper chart from TUMOL was useless since I wasn't star hopping. I went inside and fired up Stellarium, that was useless also. I download Carte des Ciel and that didn't help. I was in a bit of bind. You could say that Goto was letting me down. But, Goto is a just a tool like a Telrad or paper chart. I needed to use my tools better. I could see Leo in the sky with Saturn added. Realign! I replaced my alignment stars with Saturn and Denebola. Slew to M95. Dead center, as expected.

• M105 - 2 objects in the eyepiece. The McNish charts say I'll see two, but TUMOL shows 3, but one is dim. Eventually, with averted I saw the third so I confirmed M105.

The Virgo objects were an easy blur. Everyone was dead nuts centered in the eyepiece. I have no problems claiming a find for them. Did I star hop? Nope. Did I learn how dense Virgo/Leo were? Yup. Clearly this wolud be a fun area to explore from a dark site!

• M3 - Hey, it is back. Very nice.
• M83 - I hear church bells. 11pm? Very hard, tried averted and the hood. The tube is almost horizontal but with essentially only the hills and the dunes of Truro I have perfect horizon here. Sadly, I didn't nab it. In retropspect, I may have tried too early, it could have risen some more! Yup, that's it. I just simulated it in Stellarium, I had 2 more hours until it was high.

At this point I considered giving up. I had accomplished what I wanted to accomplish. But, I scanned ahead in the list M13 and M92 were coming up. So I kept on going.

• M12 in Ophicchius. It was below the horizon! So were all the Oph objects.

Time for bed.

Well, actually not. The seeing had been great so I put the 9mm in and did some Saturn viewing. Sadly, the 3rd floor deck just didn't work out for this. I was bummed. This was the best seeing I had ever seen for Saturn, oh well, it will still be there later.

I hibernated the scope and left it all outside.

Next morning, I woke it up. Took the Telrad off and put the solar filter on. 2 sunspots!

Totals:

Found with telescope: 55
Found with binoculars: 7
Found with naked eye: 1
Did not find: 3
Obstructed view: 4

Total found: 63

The missed objects were 83, 33 and 77. If I had waited about 10 minutes, 33 would have been an obstructed, not a missed. But there was no way to get it in the twilight.

I was done by quarter after 11.

I'm looking forward to the real one next week. It will be better with friends. Goto will give me the time to observe. Clearly, I was ahead of schedule most of the night. I didn't like the TUMOL printouts, the McNish printout is better for Goto, the descriptions are better.

Truro dark report

Wow, it is dark out here.

I mean, wow, really, freaking dark.

I went to Pilgrim Heights around 8:30 tonight. I'm driving down the access road with my high beams on, having just got off Route 6 with other car's shining their headlights in my eyes. I park the car. I'm not dark adapted at all and I turn off the lights.

Wow, OMG, wow.

It is freaking dark here.

This place is darker than Steve's house, at least when I got there last week and initially wasn't dark adapted. I've not yet opened the door and with the car's dashboard lights on I can tell I'm going to be impressed when I open the door.

Now, let me digress a bit, both as a child and as an adult I've been attacked by a dog. I have a pathological fear of them. There are coyotes on the cape, in these dunes. I chose this site because of the trees, the winds are 10 to 20 mph now with gusts to 30. The house is shaking as I type this. The trees are all around me, I'm parked on just a thin strip of asphalt.

I can't open the door. I don't like being outside in the dark. I hate being alone at YFOS but I manage to do it, but I don't like it. But here? Jim Young isn't just over the hill. I try rolling down the window but that doesn't work well at all. I feel the woods around me, but I know at the beaches I'd feel the dunes around me.

So I open the door and stand next to the car with the door almost closed on me. M35, 36, 37, 38 all there, all with stars. Even M46 is almost bright. M42 is small in the binocs, but I think brighter than I've ever seen it, at least it seemed that way. It is certainly bigger than I've even seen in in these binocs.

Sadly, I know I'm never ever going to be able to use this site, at least not without a partner. Oh well, lets go to the house and see what that is like

The house itself has the front porch light on, casting huge shadows. I don't have a key, shoot, I don't own the house, so I can't do anything about it.

But I find the same objects. Trees are a problem at the house. NW is pretty bad but there aren't any leaves yet so I can see all the objects easily. I turn to try for M46. A car pulls out of the street across from me blinding me with his high beams. I lift the binocs and scan, there's M47 and M46 is right next to it. No problems with that.

Ok, so that's the answer. I put some pipes in the ground as foundations and I build some light screens and I do all my observing from right here. It is hard to tell but our house may be darker than YFOS.

I head back to Provincetown and get out on the deck. There are sodium vapor lights shining in my eyes. I try for M46. Yeah, got that too from P-town.

This is gonna be a good place to live.

No Boxes tonight, or, a dark site with the binoculars

Steve and Rags cajoled me into heading over to New Boston to have one lest viewing session with them before the move. I knew I shouldn't, I was way too tired and the boxes were calling my name. But, I did anyway. I really wanted to get a dark site view of the recent M-objects I had been observing so I could take that to Truro.

So although I had my scope in the car, I only carried my parka, chair, and binoculars out behind Steve's shed.

Rags was cursing the Goto Nova, not that there was anything wrong with it, but Rags just doesn't like GoTo scopes. I felt pretty bad when I tripped over the power and his alignment was lost, but it turns out that that was not the first time that had happened that evening already!

So Rags and I got some quality binocular time in. I should him how to find M36, M38 and M37. Those were the easy ones. M35 was a bit harder, pointing out "that star there" really doesn't work all that well sometimes, but he got it.

Somewhere in here Steve's Atlas is giving him fits and he disappears inside, trying to google something to fix it.

Then we get down in earnest trying to find P17, Comet Holmes. The Comet Chasers web site was still claiming that it was naked eye visible, so I figured with binoculars it would be a cinch. I had failed 2 nights running to grab it from Manchester. I knew that section of the sky pretty well. I got out the charts and we start looking for it. Both Rags and I tried both my 15x50s and Rags' 7x30s (???) as well as the 4" Jaeger refractor. Nothing! Steve comes back out and tries also. We spent a good 45 minutes on this. We know is going to be huge and dim but we are just not seeing it.

Steve realigns the Atlas and we poke about, finding the Flame Nebula, but not the Horsehead, not that we expected to, and the Owl Nebula. Wow, that was a dim one! I'm not looking forward to that at all during the Marathon!

I had to call it an early night, the alarm was going off at 4:30, the boxes were calling to me.

Just because you didn't see anything new doesn't mean you failed

So after checking out the Comet Chasing website I decide to grab Comet Holmes tonight from Manchester and then after that easy grab, I'd enjoy 46P/Wirtanen passing by NGC 1893. I knew that that would be dim but I'm getting so good at this it would be a piece of cake.

I went outside right around 7:30pm, watched the sky turn from a turquoise Maxfield Parrish blue sky into night. I found Mirphak and it was clear the sky was too bright so I waited a bit.

This was a gonna be a tough hop. From Mirphak I found the box of 5 stars around it, so then I could rotate my paper chart. Then to the left to a pair then up to a bright one (Delta Persei I guess), then curve around down to the next bright one then up to yet another bright one. Phew, now we are getting close. Find the next one and almost bisect them up to a double, three dim ones.

And I looked and waited. It was hard. I didn't want to put the binocs down because all my neighbors lights would ruin what little dark adaption I had. I waited and looked.

I closed my eyes and went in a got a pillow so I could lay down. I could find the spot again and again but no Holmes.

I checked the charts and saw that I was slightly off so I looked in the new spot.

I spent about 45 minutes, giving up around 8:15pm. I briefly went over to NGC 1893 just because when I looked for M38 the other day I saw some patterns that I thought might be something. I found them again but they didn't match the website that had a description by Walter Scott Houston: "contains a conspicuous Y pattern formed by four 8th magnitude stars." I thought I saw a T in the right spot, but certainly not a Y.

And 46P was, of course, no where to be seen.

All in all it was a good time, even though I didn't bag anything.

PS: about an hour later I briefly went outside too take a quick check on 1893 again. It was a lot darker now! I wasn't able to stay but that may have been my problem with Holmes. Clear Sky Clock is looking ok for tomorrow night, I'll try then also

Moonset over Manchester

Here's a quick shot of the moon setting. Probably one of the last Manchester moon shot's I'll take.

I never really did like this apartment but I must say, the photographic opportunities have been great. There used to be 4 or 5 huge trees which all were dying or dead. The town cut those down a few years ago. Once they were gone the camera came out. Odd that tree cutting would improve a natural setting. Then again, as an astronomer, I guess I should know that already!

I'm especially fond of the sunrise reflecting off the building pictures, the sunsets, and of course my lunar eclipse shots that got published in the Union Leader. I'll try and dig some of those up later.

Not only M objects you see...

So I'm sitting, you know where, reading the Feb 2008 issue of Astronomy. Wanting to see if there is something I grab tonight before getting back to my boxes.

Observe Winter's Forgotten Star Clusters it says and I say sure, lets read. First one up is NGC 1502 in Camelopardalis, which has got to be one of the weirdest constellations. (Note, from Manchester, you can't see any of it!)

Note that there isn't any clickable link for NGC 1502, there isn't much out there on it. But I fired up Stellarium and memorized the patterns. I used Cassiopeia to find Mirphak, then went in a straight line from Algol through Mirphak to 2 asterisms I found in Stellarium and hey, there it was.

Or should I say, there it should have been.

Now NGC 1502 isn't all that impressive in my 15x50 Canon IS binoculars from Manchester. At times I thought I could split the double but at other times I thought I couldn't. The article in Astronomy pointed out that it was at the tail end of Kemble's Cascade, a quite attractive asterism. I hadn't looked that up at all before I headed out and I saw something that could be described as a "cascade." As I was observing, a satellite passed through the field of view. I followed it to the horizon.

So I went back inside to google some and confirmed that that was indeed what I found so I went back out to enjoy it more.

I counted 21 stars in the Cascade, about a third of which I could only see with averted vision. Quite nice in binoculars. And wouldn't you know, another satellite passed through!

And as for NGC 1502, well, I'll claim it as a find but I certainly wouldn't have unless the Cascade was there to confirm it. I think I need more power to see anything there.

Oh, I went and checked out M44 some more just so I could fix it in my mind. Rags also saw it that evening, I just read his email before writing this entry. He didn't seem to think it was as nice as the Pleiades, the overall same dimness and all. Thinking about it, I think that that may be why I like it, it isn't flashy like the Seven Sisters, it is just big and full. But of course, the Sisters are nice also.

Back to boxes.

Quick, before the moon rises

Yeah yeah yeah. I'm packing boxes, but I'll certainly take a bit of clear moonless time out, not that there will be all that much, I'm writing this at 8:22 and the moon official rose 4 minutes ago.

Anyway, I wanted to see if I could grab M46 from Manchester. No such luck. I had hoped with the moon being below the horizon it just might be possible. Sadly, the sodium vapor glow just wouldn't let it come through. M47 and M41 were nice and easy. I counted 11 in both of them.

So then I went out back just to see what "moonless" did to my previous 3 targets, M36, M37 and M38. M38 was much easier than before, but I guess that that wasn't too surprising. What was surprising to me that was, with averted vision, M36 was showing stars, just just a dim fuzz. I couldn't count them because when I looked, they disappered into the fuzz. I guess with practice I'll be able to count with averted vision.

So then, feeling lucky, I tried for M35. Hey, I got it! It easily resolved into stars, I counted but I forgot the total! I looked for NGC 2158, did not expect to see it and was not too disappointed when I didn't see it. Maybe in Truro.

The Pleiades showed 3 stars to the naked eye, thought I'd through that it for you folks with dark sites and that was with averted vision! I only got 1 with direct vision. (And no, I don't know why I could count 3 with averted here and not on M36, maybe it was the separation?)

I recall seeing the Beehive Cluster, aka Praesepe, aka M44. I had never seen it before. Wow, that is a great one! Certainly a binocular object. With no dark adaptation I counted 42 stars, quite beautiful. It certainly rivals the Pleiades for the wow factor.

My previous favorite was M7, the open cluster in Sagitarius (hmmm, maybe Scorpio, depending on where the boundary is, I sure don't know.) I guess I can have a summer favorite and a winter pair of favorites, no?

Back to the boxes...

Finally, M38

So I've been trying for a few days now to get M38 from Manchester with the binoculars. Not being dark adapted and having a very bright moon certainly hasn't helped. I've also waited until it was a bit lower toward the horizon so I didn't have to crane my neck so, but that put it into the thicker part of the atmosphere.

So tonight I said I'd try and grab it while it was high.

I went outside on the deck and tried to find a good position, it was too high to permit me to sit in a chair, would have had to lean back too much. (And my deck, I did you not is not quite 4 x 4. There is a long part, but if I laid down on that the house block Auriga.

So off to the square part, I put my legs up on the railing and drat, it isn't directly overhead, I had to lean forward just a little bit. It actually wasn't as uncomfortable as that sounds.

I found M36 quite easily, the I went over to M37 just to see how it compared to the other viewings. I won't say it was bright but it was certainly brighter. I could see it without inverted vision but it got better with averted.

So, to find it. You find M36 and look below and to the right. You'll see a curved line of stars, 4, then a gap, then 2 more. (Below this structure is another, quite nice looking, structure of brighter stars.) If you continue the upper curve of 6 stars, just pretend there is a 7th.

That's where M38 is.

But, of course, I couldn't see it. But I had only been outside a few minutes, so I just relaxed and laid back. Found I could rest my head on the deck (should have brought a pillow) and hold the binoculars at an angle and still see the section I wanted to see.

I waited, watched the thin clouds pass through my field of view. And then I started to see hints of something, but I was never certain.

So I kept on waiting, waiting for my eyes to dark adapt more. I went back and checked on M36 and M37. They were both more apparent.

And I waited and yes, soon enough it was there. Dim as anything, but there.

I remembered reading that each person has a sweet spot in their averted vision. I moved all around it, trying to see if one spot was better. I couldn't see any difference.

But I had it, finally, I had it.

A Quick Attempt

The sky is very clear tonight so I try for M38 again. I find M36 quite easily, don't even need my charts, I still remember from last night. But M38 prove elusive.

Manchester with lots of moon is just not the hot ticket I guess.

Sun Pillars, the moon and an unwasted night

So we're driving back from the Cape and the skies are pretty nasty, snowing actually. But for some reason I check the Clear Sky Clock and it shows nice skies that night at YFOS. I'm pretty happy, it as been a dreadful winter. I check online to see who else might be going and frankly I'm given some questioning "looks."

But sure enough, as the sun starts setting it starts clearing to the west and we are treated to some nice sun pillars.

This is kind nice. At the time I thought the were sun dogs but I found out I was wrong when writing this post.

So Steve is trying to get Rags to go to YFOS. He'll bring the Burgess and Rags will bring the GoTo Nova and Jeannette drives and drives and we get home.

And the moon is honking bright. Drat, forgot about that. I saw all the blue on Clear Sky Clock and forgot that blue in the last row is bad.

It doesn't matter too much, it is pretty darn cloudy still also so we call it all off.

But around 11pm or 11:30pm it clears up nicely and I get the binoculars out. I'm looking out the south windows now, looking for M36, It takes me a long time to find it. I'm comparing the sky to the chart in Stellarium and it is just wrong. I eventually figure out that I'm putting Mars into Auriga and when I correct that M36 is easily seen. Don't even need averted vision to see a fuzz patch.

The nearby moon makes M38 completely impossible to see. I've got the star patterns dead on but it just isn't there. I'll have to try this when the moon isn't so bright.

I go over to M37 and I find it but just barely. Averted really helps.

I try, half heartedly, for M35 but I'm not too disappointed when I fail to grab that one.

Off to bed now.

Insomnia? M-time

So it is about 4:30 AM and I can't sleep. This is about a week now that I've been waking around 4AM. Very annoying. So why not continue the evening's stargazing? Fire up Stellarium, ooo, Cygnus is up. I know that that has an easy M in it. M29 right near Sadr.

Outside with the Canon 15x50IS binoculars. At first I thought I missed it. The star pattern was dead on but I couldn't see it. Oh, there it is. Very dim and small! I only got it with averted vision. I guess since it is an open cluster I expected it to be larger, that is, of course, nonsense. I wasn't at all able to resolve any stars.

While looking at it a very dim satellite went through the field of view. I tracked it off to my right until it disappeared behind the house. Dimmest I've ever seen.

So now I open up TUMOL, what else is in Cygnus (which is placed rather well for my chair). M39. Uh oh, at least in Stellarium it seems to be in the middle of nowhere. That's not entirely true. Take a line from Sadr through Deneb but bend it down a bit. That gets you right there but there still is a jump. Fortunately, there is a chain from Deneb that gets you halfway. Follow the chain then look around. Got it! Much, much, larger than M29. I counted 13 stars.

Ok, what else. Cepheus is up but there doesn't seem to be any Ms in it. I guess I'll try and go back to sleep.

...

No luck there, so lets see what is to the South. I can do that from indoors, hanging out a window. One star, what is it? Stellarium tells me. Jupiter! Thin clouds, can't even see Antares. Oh boy. But, the clouds are low and Stellarium tells me that M26 is up above Jupiter. I see one dim fuzzy, check the charts. Ah M11 or the Wild Duck Cluster. This is quite apparent. I can see the star pattern above it. An L pointing up and to the right. Can't resolve any stars but it is bright for Manchester. Back to M26, nope.

Nope point in sleeping now, the alarm goes off soon anyhow.

A few Ms

Steve wanted me to come out and check out the GoTo Nova but I got in late and was tired. Said no. Then later got feeling Astro-guilty, wasting clear like that. Went outside, Arcturus was up, but low, couldn't see Muphrid (eta Boo) yet, the next pointer for M3. Waited about an hour, saw Muphrid so got the parka on. M3 was easy in the Canon 15x50 IS Binoculars. Nice, averted vision was not needed but did help.

Tried for M51. I've enjoyed this in the 8" SCT. Got the star charts out on Astromist, was pointed at exactly the right spot. Stared all around the spot, nothing. Makes sense, mag 8.4 instead of 6.2.

Checked on Stellarium, M53 should be possible from the deck. Looked up the hops, Arturus to Muphrid (eta Boo) easy double hop to alpha Com. Memorize the cool pattern to the left, a bent L pointing down, M53 should be just east of it.

Dang, there it was. Clear as day.

M3 and M53, just dim spots from Manchester in binocs. It will be fun to compare the Truro view.

Wide Field imaging and MM practice

So, the Messier Marathon was supposed to happen this weekend but we were clouded out both Friday and Saturday. Sunday night was clear and moonless so I figured I get some MM practice time in, as well as shoot some widefield shots of constellations. So off to YFOS I went.

I was, of course, running late, but this was part of the MM practice. How much time does it take from when I get to the site until I am fully set up and aligned?

It turns out that that is 45 minutes, seem pathetically slow but I'll just have to take that into account. Then again, it will be much easier to get to Larry's by dusk for a DST MM in April. I wish I had measured how much time it took until I was aligning, because that initial setup time can happen while it is still light, but does it really matter? As a test, I only used 2 calibration stars for speed. That cuts some time off. (I choose two only because after I did the first one, the GoTo to the second one was pretty darn close.)

I check out M42, but the transparency seems pretty poor, not much detail could be seen. This was also true of looking up at the stars themselves, there didn't seem to be all that many.

So I took my Canon A610 and attached it with a bracket to my counter weight bar. This is something I got on Astromart months ago. Tonight would be the first time I was using it. I took some shots of the Orion Constellation, then the bottom part of the constellation, and then a shot with the Pleiades in it. The A610 can take 15 second frames with 15 second dark frames. I set it to take 10 of these in continuous mode. A manually focused on infinity. I did play around with the ISO setting but sadly the EXIF data does not record that! This is a real shame because one of the shots I took was rather nice and I have no idea what settings I used. I forgot how to set aperture on so I just used whatever the camera was set to.

Just as I was in the middle of shooting, Gardner and Rich showed up for MM marathon of their own. I was glad, I really don't like being at YFOS alone.

Here's a full frame shot of the bottom of Orion. (Click the image to see the full size one.)

Now here is a 100% crop of the sword.

I also tried using Registax to see what it could do with 10 frames. Here it is:


To me this is odd, it didn't do much at all. I was a little disappointed with this. But anyways, it was fun. Here's the shot that turned out best of all.

You can see the Pleiades in the middle upper left, the Hyades Cluster of Taurus in the upper left, Aldebaran showing its orange color. Mirfak and the Alpha Persei Cluster are in the center right, and bright Capella owns the upper right. (You really need to click this one to see anything...)

I do wish there were more stars. This was the best shot of the evening and I don't know how I made it. I know I'll being trying this again and I appreciate any advice.

The haze was getting worse and we all retired to the warming hut to chat a bit. We probably stayed about 15-20 minutes and we checked the sky again and it was getting better.

Gardner was really fighting dew with his binoculars but Rich seemed to be doing wel with his Pronto. Just as I was about to pack it up, he called out that he got M1. Now I've tried for this before with binoculars from Manchester and failed everytime, I wanted to see it. So I punched it into the hand controller and hey, there it was! I was tired so I didn't look much.

I tried for a quick succession of M objects that I knew were in the sky. Bang, they all were there, must have gotten half a dozen in about 2 minutes. It does seem like a Goto scope, once it is setup, really makes short work of a Messier Marathon! ("And yes, I realize that this isn't necessarily the point, just let me enjoy what I do, ok?," he said a bit testily...)

I had to be at work the next day so I reluctantly started tearing down the equipment. By the time I was done the haze had cleared and the skies were gorgeous.

Of course...