Messier Marathon 2025 (original) (raw)

2025 Messier Marathon Results

In the year 2025, New Moon will occur on Saturday, March 29, 2025. Consequently, the best date and primary weekend for the Messier Marathon 2025 will be on March 29/30, 2025, with a secondary occsion being a week earlier, on March 22/23, 2025 (see the Messier Marathon Dates). According to Tom Polakis' investigation, on the first occasion, attampting a full score of 110 could be possible between 16 deg and 40 deg Northern Latitude, while on the secondary, earlier occasion, it will be possible between 8 deg and 35 deg North. For both dates, the northern limit comes from M30, and the southern limit is due to M110.

Messier Marathon Events 2025

Again, we plan to announce all scheduled 2025 Messier Marathon Events here.

If you have undertaken, or participated in, a Messier Marathon, 2025 or earlier, if not already done so, pleaesend me your or your group's results, or the link to your results page, for inclusion in ourMessier Marathon Results page!

Extracurricular Activities

While it is the goal of the Messier Marathon to observe as many Messier Objects in a night as possible, it is sometimes convenient and enjoyable to combine the Messier Marathon with some other observational activities, in case some time is left during the night session. In the following, we propose some options to select from:

Deepsky enthusiasts can look for additional clusters, nebulae, and galaxies. While you can certainly pick and observe whatever you like, we also providea list of additional deepsky objects to select from (also available with data).

It is always delightful to add to the Messier Marathon the observation of as many of the planets as possible. This year, on the primary, second date, Venus, Saturn, and Neptune will be impossible and Mercury very difficult, while on the first, secondary occasion, Mercury, and again Saturn and Neptune will be missed.

Some comets brighter than about mag 14.0 will be visible; we will list them below from various sources (e.g., Seiichi Yoshida's Visual Comet lists for thenorthern andsouthern hemisphere,Skyhound's Comet Chasing page,Fachgruppe Kometen list), and the BAA comet section:

Comet RA (2000.0) Dec mag Con RA (2000.0) Dec mag Con Comments March 23, 2025 March 30, 2025 C/2022 E2 (ATLAS) 01 30 48.6 +48 15 23 14.4 And 01 33 16.6 +48 01 36 14.4 And El. 51/46, ~12m 29P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 1 09 40 11.3 +10 35 01 15.7 Leo 09 38 22.1 +10 42 10 15.7 Leo ~13m, outbursts ~11m P/2010 H2 (Vales) 13 45 26.0 +05 46 51 12.5 Vir 13 41 01.6 +06 04 39 12.5 Vir maybe ~20m (Yoshida) C/2021 G2 (ATLAS) 15 34 31.2 -13 04 06 15.9 Lib 15 33 42.2 -12 11 07 15.9 Lib ~13m 13P/Olbers 18 43 37.4 -21 22 09 16.1 Sgr 18 45 40.4 -21 51 26 16.2 Sgr ~13m (Yoshida) C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) 20 25 51.1 +17 01 58 13.2 Del 20 25 54.8 +18 15 35 13.3 Del ~12m

For some time, it was thought that southern hemisphere observers would have an extra one to try, C/2024 G3 (Atlas), but this comet got lost - probably disintegrated - during its perihelion passage in January.

Note that occasionally comets become bright shortly (like Hyakutake in 1996, Hale-Bopp in 1997, Ikeya-Zhang and Utsunomiya in 2002), so check back for possible updates shortly before Marathon date. Also occasionally, a supernova of brightness available to amateur telesopes may have flashed up be spottable in time (like SN 1998S in NGC 3877, SN 2002ap in M74, SN 2006X in M100, SN 2012aw in M95, and SN 2014J in M82 in their years of appearance).

This year, of the "first" four minor planets, (1) Ceres will be close to the sun and practically impossible. (2) Pallas and (3) Juno are possible but unfavorable, so that only (4) Vesta is a possibly attractive object.

Planet RA (2000.0) Dec mag Con RA (2000.0) Dec mag Con March 23, 2025 March 30, 2025 (1) Ceres 22 58 47.2 -14 57 09 9.2 Aqr 23 09 00.6 -14 02 52 9.2 Aqr El. 23/27 (2) Pallas 20 25 32.7 +08 06 50 10.5 Del 20 32 24.8 +08 52 56 10.5 Del (3) Juno 16 08 36.7 -07 21 51 10.8 Oph 16 08 02.6 -06 44 38 10.7 Oph (4) Vesta 15 14 41.2 -06 44 16 6.7 Lib 15 13 56.0 -06 19 26 6.5 Lib

For convenience of interested observers, we also give the positions of the major planets here:

Planet RA (2000.0) Dec mag Con RA (2000.0) Dec mag Con March 23, 2025 March 30, 2025 Mercury 00 15 15.1 +05 21 01 +5.2 Psc 23 55 35.9 +01 50 24 +3.7 Psc El. 5/10 Venus 23 55 04.7 +08 38 36 -4.2 Peg 23 41 13.2 +06 13 43 -4.1 Psc El. 8/13 Mars 07 30 53.8 +24 43 46 +0.2 Gem 07 39 35.5 +24 13 08 +0.4 Gem Jupiter 04 52 06.3 +22 11 07 -2.2 Tau 04 56 24.7 +22 19 02 -2.1 Tau Saturn 23 37 31.5 -04 31 33 +1.1 Aqr 23 40 40.5 -04 11 49 +1.2 Aqr El. 9/15 Uranus 03 26 48.5 +18 33 21 5.8 Tau 03 28 01.9 +18 37 52 5.8 Tau Neptune 23 59 41.9 -01 24 34 7.8 Psc 00 00 40.2 -01 18 20 7.8 Psc Pluto 20 24 46.5 -22 48 18 14.6 Cap 20 25 19.1 -22 47 43 14.6 Cap

Moon 18 37 37.3 -28 21 21 -9.9 Sgr 00 59 24.5 +08 16 52 -4.9 Psc El. 84/8

Moreover,meteors from various showers may occur, and depending on your location, you may be able to observe theInternational Space Station, ISS.

This year, an extra celestial event will occur on the primary Messier Marathon weekend, in daylight on Saturday: The New Moon of March 29, 2025 will produce a partial Solar Eclipse, observable from Northeastern US, Eastern Canada, North Atlantic, much of Arctic and Europe, and parts of northwestern Africa.See Nasa's information -- Fred Espanak's Google map andMap from the Five Millennium Canon(Saros Series 149 info).

Please send me any results of your Messier Marathon for inclusion in our Messier Marathon Results page!

Messier Marathon Home< 2026| 2024 >

Hartmut Frommert
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Last Modification: March 28, 2025