Met Jay and Joe at Pit 'N Pole last night. Poor Joe has some serious equipment trouble... Attempted a Messier marathon, but ran out of gas waiting for the last few objects to come up. At 4:00, I had been up for 24 hours, and there was no sign of Sagittarius yet. There was a lot of dirty air, up to about 10 degrees. It was more humid than I expected. Lots of frost on everything. There were a couple of clouds to the west, so I started with what I could see. First batch: M42/43, M41, Cald 64 = Tau Can Maj cluster, M93. These were done in twilight. Then I looked up and saw M45 and C41=Hyades. A few minutes later, M41 was naked eye, too. Then M50. M44, M46, M47 naked eye. Back to Orion for M78. I missed M74 and M77. M74 was low in the dirty air, and M77 was washed out in the zodiacal light. Second batch: M33 was nice and large. So I think I could have done better on M74/77. M31/32/110. Cald 28, M34. M79. M103, Cald 8, Cald 10, other NGC cluster in that area. M52. Cald 13. M76 Third batch: M1, M35, M37, M36, M38, M48, M67 Leo Galaxies: M65, M66, M95, M98, M105 Next group: M53, M3, M64. Ursa Major: M51, M101, M40, M106, M108, M97, M81, M82, M109, Coma/Virgo: M63, M94, M68, M104, M61, M49, M60, M59, M58, M87, M86, M84, M98, M99, M100, M89, M90, M91. After a rest: M13, M92, M83, C60/61 - Antennae, NGC 5866, M85, C21, M78, M5, M107, M10, M12, M14, M4, M9, M19, M62, M80, M27, M71, M29, M39. I forgot to look for M56, and didn't do the stuff that rose after 4:00. So a few more than 80 Messiers, 12 others, and some things that I forgot to write down. Now that I'm home and warm, I wish that I had stayed longer. ---- Rev. Michael A. van Opstall Department of Mathematics, University of Utah Office: JWB 313 opstall@math.utah.edu