Posted by Davin Flateau on 25 Mar 2006 at 10:27 am.
Filed under Astronomy.
Thanks for an incredible run, Shockers.
While it seems that everyone in south central Kansas is caught up in the NCAA basketball tournament, did you know that March brings “Astronomy’s March Madness” to the entire northern hemisphere? It’s the Messier Marathon! The sky is aligned just right, allowing you to see all 110 Messier objects in one night. Tracy Tuttle at Mabee Observatory at Bethel College in North Newton invites you to join the fun tonight and fill out your bracket with spiral galaxies, giant clouds of gas and dust, star clusters, and supernova explosion debris.
The Messier Objects are a list of 110 “fuzzy” sky objects cataloged starting in 1774 by French astronomer and comet-hunter Charles Messier. Messier wanted to catalog and map all the permanent faint fuzzy objects in the sky to avoid mistaking them for the comets he was hunting for.
Tip off begins not long after sunset, and that’s when caffeine-fueled astro-athletes put their skills to the test. Keeping an eye on the shot clock, the players follow a precise schedule, dribbling their telescopes from object to object. Some targets are easy lay-ups, like M31, The Andromeda Galaxy and M45, The Pleiades while others are more of A 3 pointer from the corner, like the elliptical galaxy M59 and M76, the Little Dumbell Nebula. The contest continues all into the night until the buzzer goes off in the glow of dawn rising in the east.
But don’t worry - you don’t have to be a seasoned athlete for tonight’s event. I gather that they’re going to make it a little easier on you, using the observatory’s excellent computerized telescope, and taking high resolution images for all to see.
Tracy Tuttle describes tonight’s keys to winning:
The marathon is a collaborative effort between Mabee Observatory, The North Central Kansas Astronomical Society (NCKAS) and The Outhouse Observatory. The purpose of the marathon is to: 1) Simply the challenge to image all 110 Messier objects in one night and 2) to foster astronomical interest and to raise awareness of light pollution. Light pollution issues can be found at the website of the International Dark-Sky Association.
You can also call the Observatory for more information at 316-284-5568.
Good luck, and try not to get into foul trouble!
