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Photographic Messier Marathon Album by Tim Hunter  M17 In 1999, the eleven year old negatives from the photographic Messier Marathon on March 19/20, 1988 were scanned at low resolution (675 dpi) on a Polaroid Sprint 35 Plus Scanner and converted to JPG or GIF images for display on this web page. Several of the original negatives were missing, and their images can not be displayed here. All the negatives were processed in Photoshop 5.0 and Corel Photo-Paint 8.0 to improve contrast and to remove dust specks, scratches, and blue static electricity marks. Most of the images were cropped to reduce the image size and improve the image composition. Many of the original negatives produced very good images without much processing. Other negatives had few scratches or static electricity marks, but their images were poor because of underexposure or significant star trailing from poor guiding or wind gusts. The following images are representative examples of those with significant static electricity marks. The before images show the pictures as they originally appeared on the negatives. The after images show them after considerable processing: "Contact Sheets" of the Messier Objects The following list of images is in approximately the same order the photographs were taken on the Marathon night. Those objects on this list who names appear in blue represent Messier objects whose image negatives are lost. All images are approximately oriented with the North at the top and the West to the right. M103 M34 M31, M32, 110 M33 M74 M77 M76 M45 M42, M43 M79 M78 M1 M35 M37 M36 M38 M41 M93 M46 M47 M50 M48 M67 M44 M105 M96 M95 M65, M66 M64 M53 M3 M81 M82 M108 M97 M109 M40 M101 M84 M86 M87 M58 M59, M60 M89 M90 M88 M91 M99 M98 M100 M85* M61 M49 M83 M68 M104 M5 M13 M92 M57 M56 M29 M39 M12** M10 M14 M107 M9 M80 M4 M19 M62 M6 M7 M8 M20 M21 M18 M23 M25 M24 M17 M16 M27 M71 M11 M26 M22 M28 M69 M70 * An object recorded as M85 on the original negative list does not match M85's appearance shown by The Sky and MegaStar as well as by CCD images of M85 taken at the 3towers Observatory. It has not yet been identified and must have been mistaken for M85 in the rush to photograph as many objects as possible on Messier Marathon night. ** The image recorded as M12 on the original negative list is actually that of M10. In the frenzy of the Messier Marathon night, M10 mistakenly was photographed twice and M12 missed. Back to top |
