ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, March 10, 1997 TAG: 9703100073
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-4 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: NORFOLK
Only in March is the Earth's position such that astronomers can see all 109 Messier objects in a night.
The sky was the limit, but clouds were the limiting factor as amateur astronomers engaged in a cosmic scavenger hunt.
From sunset Friday to sunrise Saturday, they set up telescopes in a field south of the city, hoping to spot all 109 Messier objects before dawn swept away the chance.
Messier objects are nebulae, galaxies and star clusters identified by French astronomer Charles Messier in the 1700s.
He painstakingly marked their locations on star charts so he wouldn't confuse the fuzzy-looking celestial objects with comets, which was what he was really searching for. Only in March is the Earth's position such that all 109 can be seen in a single night, if a suitable location away from artificial lights can be found.
Friday night, S. Kent Blackwell, an avid sky gazer for three decades, unloaded his 12-inch diameter telescope and swung it toward an old friend: the nebula, in constellation Orion, known as M42 (the 42nd object on Messier's list).
``Oh, wow,'' he said, peering through the eyepiece. ``Thirty years of looking at this, and I'm still ecstatic. Let me show you the Crab Nebula, too. That's M1.''
He found it, and everyone took a peek.
``Just 107 more Messiers to go,'' Blackwell said.
Ron Robisch drove from a town near Frederick, Md., to take part in the outing. He scoffed at the notion of sleeping.
``I didn't travel down here to go to bed,'' Robisch said. He turned his telescope to M41, a cluster of stars.
Blackwell focused his attention on M51, the Whirlpool Galaxy. ``The first two (Messier objects) were in our galaxy,'' he explained. ``This one is a different galaxy. You're looking at light that's 15 million years old because it took that long to get to us.''
Scott Donnelly of Virginia Beach said he enjoys looking at the stars from the cockpit of his airplane, but being on the ground did not dim his enthusiasm.
``It's like someone took a handful of diamonds and threw them against black velvet,'' he said.
The diehard astronomers hoped to get a look at Comet Hale-Bopp in the eastern sky just before sunrise Saturday, but clouds moved in, obscuring their view. Clouds have been a problem all spring, Blackwell noted.
Donnelly was even reluctant to give up as the sky lightened. He aimed his binoculars at one of the few stars still visible through clouds and sunrise.
``It gives you a whole new appreciation of the world,'' he said.
-ASSOCIATED PRESS
LENGTH: Medium: 59 linesby CNB