Images are viewed best at 800 x 600 (16-bit) display, you may need to adjust the contrast and brightness.
On March 11th to 12th in Argyle, Texas on a clear evening, we participated in a non-stop CCD imaging Messier Marathon,
an informal competition to locate the most Messier objects in a single evening during a dusk-to-dawn CCD imaging session.
A couple of things everyone should remember when attending a starparty for the first time.
Messier objects are the 110 prominent deep-sky objects discovered by the great comet hunter Charles Messier, 1730 to 1817.
Messier won fame for a catalogue of celestial objects he sought to avoid, while the more than dozen comets he discovered are
forgotten. To many professional astronomers the exotic galaxies, wispy nebulae, and shimmering star clusters embody a wealth
of information about the evolution and composition of our universe. To amateur astronomers, they are the jewels of the night sky.
Objects to see with our binoculars, telescopes and even the naked eye.
The session was non-stop. Tarps blocked the wind and 2 space heaters kept us thawed out. People brought us food and drinks
as we averaged an image about every 6 minutes. About 40 images into the session we realized we could not individually image the
catalogue, so we started alternating objects. When we finished, we discovered the outside temperature was 34º F and everything
outside of the tarp area had frost on it. It can take many years to see them all, but we managed to image 104 objects in one single
11-hour session! Wallpapers of the 104 objects are available in 2 image files.
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Images Copyright © 2010 Dan Berryhill, Carroll Dunaway, Calvin Hill