Messier Perfect Master?

Some of my modern-generation friends regard me as a deep sky walking go-to, but I am in fact pitiful. I am weak on the southern M's because I don't have good southern sky in my yard, where I do practically all my observing. I've seen all the M's more than once, but the globulars in Oph, Sgt and Sco are mostly a blur in my mind. The Virgo cluster, with almost no bright stars to guide the eye, is like seriouly deep space. And if you say M-some number, I might go into a panic for a minute before I can think what and where it is, even if it is a "favorite". I know pretty cold the Ms I can see from my yard, but the first time they pop up in the east for the year can sometimes take a bit of thought.

So, my question to you Messier marathoners is, do some of you have perfect mastery? By this I mean the ability to think of, point at, and see without surprise, all the Messier objects, without written or high-tech aid? I think that would be so cool. I hope to live in the country in retirement, and to observe enough to be able to do that. The number of Messiers seems tractable, but the sky is so large!

Holy gurus, step forward, and show me the way.
Ron

Ron,
As one of the first to do the marathon back in 1987, I still had to rely on a list and finder cards to locate all the objects. Norm McLeod and I had been trying for years, coming close (>100) several times before 1987. Even with that experience, we had to rely on charts and aids, especially in the dense galaxy regions and the areas where dusk or dawn was going to make things difficult. I only used co-ordinates on 1 or 2 objects with my C-8 and we didn't use any co-ordinates with Norm's 12" f4. Even today, I recall where some of the objects are, but I don't have the ability to recall where all 100+ are. If I was showing the objects regularly to others, I might be able to, but not regularly trying to find some objects makes it impossible for me to find more than 1/2 of the list without going to some aid.
I have a very good recall, but not photographic. I suspect someone with a photographic memory could do it with no aid, and I could probably get to 70-80% if I regularly found them for a few weeks and re-aquainted myself with the Leo/Virgo area groups under darks skies.
The key being dark skies. Most of the objects will show in a good finder if you are in 7.0+ skies, but in today's light polluted environment, I would be hard pushed to find them all (not talking marathon here) from my house like I did in the late 70's/early 80's.
I can see the need for goto, I just roboscoped a SP mount with an Autostar, but I came from the old school of star hopping and sometimes using manual setting circles.

Brian Risley

One of the guys in our club (Riverside Astronomical Society) can find all of them without star charts, goto, or anything. He has them memorized. He regularly gets all of them except M30.

Last weekend (when I got 104) he had all of them except M30 again. He could point right at it. But it was too light. Just to confirm, at 5:30 am, he walked over to another guy's scope which that guy had been using with goto to nail every one of them. He asked to point to M30, but the scope would not go there because it did not rise until 5:34 from our site. At 5:34 the scope went right there and saw only light blue.

Even from our site in southern California, I had to force the tube down to get one of the southern globs. It was visible in the finder, but the tube would not easily go low enough. Otherwise, I missed 74 at the beginning (never could find the guide star), and the last few in the morning--I was just not familiar with that part of the sky. As for the Virgo cluster, the best way to do that is to galaxy hop. I draw a line between the easternmost star in Leo and the northernmost star in Virgo. About a third of the way east from Leo is a good guide star to 98. Then a little east and south to 99, then.....But since there are essentially no guide stars from there on, it is just galaxy hopping.

But I still have to look up all but about five of them them in Sky Atlas 2000. I even have to look up M13, because I can never remember which side of the trapezoid it is on.

Alex

This is what is known as a Messier Memory Marathon or M-Cubed. Comet hunter Don Machholz was the first to complete a 110 object M^3 in 2004.

Stephen Saber has been conducting a variation of the M-Cubed that requires the memorization of the search sequence as well.

Dave Mitsky

Thanks again guys. All your responses are inspiring. If I can ever get that house built out in darkest New Mexico, and just keep getting smarter and sharper-eyed as I get older(!), I may have a chance.

But Bill, you've got to lighten up. I feel sure even Messier let it go when he was watching a ball game.
Ron