Estimated read time: 5-6 minutes
GRANTSVILLE — Bathed in red light and covered with a knit hat, heavy winter coat and convertible gloves, an astronomer peers through her telescope. She cranes her neck over the eyepiece, then looks down at a star chart on her phone, then darts back to the eyepiece.
"Yesss!" she exclaims. She has spotted another galaxy — hidden among the thousands of stars above that light up the cold, dark desert. And in a flash, she stands up and runs to the tailgate of her truck, checks the galaxy off her list and dashes back to the telescope.
On the night of March 8, Leslie Fowler and a handful of other local amateur astronomers and astrophotographers met up in Utah's west desert to run a race — not against distance, but against time. They were participating in a Messier Marathon, where they tried to find 110 deep-sky galaxies, nebulae and star clusters all in the same night.
Its only possible during early spring, making cold temps and sleep deprivation part of the challenge. But these astronomers willingly accepted the challenge.
Setting up camp
"I've got enough water and hot chocolate to last all night long," said Jenette Scott, a friend of Fowler's and fellow Salt Lake Astronomical Society club member, as they hurriedly set up their gear. The marathon, held at the Knolls OHV Recreation Area, was not an official club event; anyone could join — just as long as they came prepared, Scott warned in the Facebook invitation.
Scott, Fowler and astrophotographer Max Byerly have met up to run the Messier for several years. The last time they planned to come to the Knolls, however, a serious storm stymied their plans. This year, the weather held and, as the sun set, they excitedly set up camp.
In order to find all 110 objects, you have to move quickly. The first two galaxies disappear below the horizon not too soon after the sun sets.
While Scott planned to photograph each object with a smart telescope and said she spent about five minutes gazing at each object before moving on, Fowler was in a rush. She planned to manually find each object with the aid of only a star chart and her keen attention to detail.
"I saw it! There it is," Fowler recounted her master plan for that night. "Next!"
Byerly, a prolific astrophotographer with his own YouTube channel, also brought the same equipment as Scott. Their all-in-one, smart Seestar telescopes were guided from a tablet and could take long exposures of a target, producing stunning images in just minutes. Over the course of the night, he and Scott were able to guide their smart telescopes all covered in blankets, from the comfort of a chair.
The camp was readied just as the sun set behind a cloud-free horizon, and one by one, the stars filled in the darkening sky. Salt Lake Astronomical Society member John Johansen and his grandson Luke Johansen finished dinner and started assembling their large telescope. John Johansen introduced his grandson to astronomy, and they were eager to try out their large telescope.
Other group members and friends had arrived, and Krista Lemoine quickly pointed her telescope toward M-74, a faint galaxy and the first target of the night. Lemoine, who lives in the city, could not find this and other objects from her home, due to light pollution.
"City lights are a pain point when this is your hobby," she said later.
3 seasons of sky all in 1 night
The winter Milky Way and constellations are still on display this time of year. Scott pointed out Sirius, the Dog Star and brightest star in the sky, bejeweling the edge of the Winter Hexagon. Emanating from this star-filled asterism was the faint outline of the Milky Way.
Byerly said what made the night special was the ability to see three seasons' worth of sky all in one night. In the evening, the winter Milky Way, or the outer edge of our arm of the galaxy, was visible. In the spring night sky, Earth points out of the galaxy, toward intergalactic space. In the wee hours of the morning, Byerly said, the Earth rotates into this sky, showing off the "galaxy season" astronomers enjoy during spring. Finally, in the morning, the summer Milky Way — that cloudy expanse familiar to any summer camper — rose above the horizon just enough for a glimpse of the night sky to come in later months.
Seestars see the stars
Byerly's and Scott's high-tech telescopes stole the show. After photographing the Lagoon Nebula, M-8, Byerly pointed out its finer details to Luke Johansen, showing him this immense cloud of dust some 5,000 light-years-distant. Meanwhile, Fowler's larger telescope still revealed incredible detail of some of the brighter star clusters, like M-13, the Great Cluster in Hercules, which contains over 100,000 densely packed stars, 25,000 light years from Earth, per NASA.
The fun of running a Messier Marathon is catching glimpses of other novel, night-sky objects, such as comets and supernovae. March 8 saw three such "add ons," two comets and the Zodiacal lights. One of these comets, 12P/Pons-Brooks may soon be visible by the naked eye, according to Forbes.com, and in an uncanny bit of serendipity, may even be visible during totality of the total solar eclipse in April.
The astronomers worked through the night, sleeping occasionally in their car and keeping up enough chatter to keep themselves lucid. They continually checked items off their list.
Before dawn, they pointed their telescopes to the brightening east, trying in vain to capture the last few objects. The sun kept them from these last six, yet it turned out 110 was not the real prize. The real winner of the night was, as Scott put it, "being with friends and sharing the sky."
