THE SKY THIS MONTH: MARCH IS MESSIER MARATHON MONTH

Charles Messier was born on June 26, 1730, in Badonvillier, Lorraine, France. He was the 10th of 12 children and grew up in simple surroundings. Messier became interested in astronomy when he was 14 years old after witnessing a bright comet and a solar eclipse in 1748.

He was later employed by the astronomer of the Navy because of his fine handwriting. There he learned to keep detailed records of his observations.

While searching for the return of comet Halley in 1758, Messier discovered several different fuzzy-blobby patches of light which he mistook for the comet. After several days of observation it was apparent that these objects were not moving and thus not the comet.

Messier began to make a catalog of these fake comets so he would not repeat his mistakes. His first entry was a fuzzy object in the constellation of Cancer the Crab and was designated M1. We now know M1 to be one of the more interesting objects in the sky. M1 is the left over remnant of a star which exploded and went super novae in 1054 AD and was recorded by the Chinese. The center of M1 holds the first known pulsar that when first detected was thought to be of extraterrestrial origins.

Messier went on to discover 19 comets and 110 faint, fuzzy-blobby things. This list of 110 objects is known as the Messier Catalog. The catalog contains some of the most interesting objects in the sky. They range from star clusters, to star formation regions, to galaxies and shells of old dying stars.

Any astronomer with a four inch sized telescope and dark skies can observe all of the Messier objects. Normally you can only see a few of them in the course of a night because the glare of the sun hides some from view. However, each year around the end of March and the beginning of April, the sun occupies a region of the sky where no Messier objects are found. Thus, if one is prepared to observe from sundown to sunup, one can view all the Messier objects in a single night!

This month the SouthEast Amateur Astronomers (SEAA) will be staging a Messier Marathon. Plans will be developed during their monthly meeting which occurs on Wednesday, March 8 in Magill Hall, room 120 at 7:00 p.m. All interested are welcome, phone 651-2172 for more details. You can read more about various Messier Marathons across the country and view images of the objects from the Web page www.seds.org/messier/Messier.html.

Our three favorite planets are still up in the western sky at sundown but they are getting harder to observe as the month progresses.

The Moon will be close to Mars on the eighth and Jupiter and Saturn on the ninth and tenth. On March 15 and 16 look for a close conjunction of Mercury and Venus low in the east at sunrise.

They will be about two degrees apart or the width of your finger at arm's length. Spring will officially be here at 1:36 a.m. central time on March 20. This time is called the equinox because everyone has a equal amount of daylight and nightfall. The Sun also rises directly in the east and sets directly in the west so now is the time to realign that Stonehenge display in your front yard.

Dr. Michael L. Cobb is chairman of the Physics Department at Southeast Missouri State University and can be reached at 651-2172.