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   Gallery of images from the 1970's.

A History of Observing Messier Objects:

My interest in astronomy began to blossom when my parents gave me a 10x30 Tasco spotting scope for my birthday in March of 1967.  With it, I was able to see things on the moon that would have otherwise gone unnoticed.  I remember observing Venus in the wee-hours of the morning from my eastward facing second story bedroom window.  Being the 60’s, anything related to astronomy or space was, of course, exciting.  The Gemini program was well underway.  My father would make sure we were up before dawn to watch as many liftoffs as possible.  Estes rockets building became a big part of those fun times through those space race years.

It was the Christmas of 1972 that opened the next door to the wonders of astronomical objects for me.  My parents gave me a Tasco 60mm f/15 refractor on a metal alta-azmuth mount.  This scope brought the cosmos just a little closer.  Yes indeed, it was hard to wait those two weeks after Christmas for the moon to appear.  When it did, it was more breathtaking than I had imagined.  The moon began to really show some character.  My first copy of Sky and Telescope Magazine was August of 1972.  With S&T’s sky charts, the tangle of constellations began to unravel.  They started to become new friends greeting me each night that I would observe.  I was able to have a lot of firsts with this scope.  I “discovered” the rings of Saturn and the moons of Jupiter.  To this day, I remember exactly where in the sky Saturn was when I first observed it.  Looking over the charts I began to noticed these little labels like M41, M35, etc..  I wondered what they were.  Star hopping began to be my road map to finding these invisible objects before I knew it was called star hopping.  Averted vision was a great discovery until I later learned it was called averted vision.  One evening I set out to find one of these objects for the first time.  I chose M41.  Sirius made for an easy star hop and to my delight, there was something worth seeing after all.  This invisible object turned out to have more stars in one place than I could imagine.  Little did I know it, but this observation marked the beginning of what ended up to be a three decade long quest to observe all 110 Messier objects.

Over the next year I found myself winding my way around the winter and then the summer constellations hunting down as many Messier objects as I could.  I was delighted to recognize old friends as the next winters constellations began to reemerge.  Each object was unique and different.  In my excitement, I would awaken my willing parents and drag them out of bed in the cold wee hours of the morning to catch a peek at these beautiful celestial wonders.  I wanted some way to be able to keep track of them all.  So, I started to draw them.  At the time, I had no idea how valuable the drawings of these firsts would be to me decades later.  The thought never really crossed my mind that I was really creating an observing log of more than just the Messier list.  The title at the top of the fist page reads, “The most spectacular things that I have seen through my telescope”.

In September of 1973, after a long summer of painting houses to make a few bucks, I placed an order for the scope of my dreams.  I ordered a Unitron 3” f/16 refractor on a German equatorial, complete with a motor drive.  I had to wait ten long and agonizing months for the scope to be delivered.  I got it on July 5, 1974 and thought I had gone to heaven.  The time window between Christmas of 1972 through the fall of 1975 were my most intensive and productive early years of observing.  I made parts for my telescope on a lathe in high school machine shop.  I did black and white and color slide astrophotography with my 35mm Konica T-3 at prime focus and took pictures of the sun and moon using a custom eyepiece projection unit.  Sadly, these wonder years gave way to things like cars, girls and going away to college.

The next piece of observing hardware was purchased in 1996 just after the disappearance of comet Hyakutake which rekindled my interest in the deep sky.  I acquired my Celestron 20x80 binoculars and mounted them on a sturdy Bogen 3036 tripod.  I quickly realized that these were as good or better at finding Messier objects as my beloved Unitron of 20 years prior.  My back yard skies were reasonably dark living east of Clovis.  My hunt for Messier objects continued.  I revisited dozens and dozens of old bright favorites.  I felt like I had broken new ground when the bino’s started to reveal galaxy after galaxy that I was never able to find with my Unitron under the more light polluted skies of the San Francisco bay area of my youth.

As wonderful as the 20x80’s were, I wanted and needed a new scope to really be able to finish observing all the Messier objects.  I acquired my 10-inch LX200 f/6.3 in August of 2000.  It became clear to me that in order to log each of the Messier objects, I would need to revisit and reconfirm all of the observations that began in the 70’s with M41.  In keeping with the tradition and spirit of star hopping, I began to log observations which actually took another 30 months to complete.  Starting September 23, 2000 through March 1, 2003, I reconfirmed all 110 Messier observations.  The very last object on my list of reconfirmation’s was M77.  With much celebration and ta-do, March 1, 2003 marked the end of a three decade quest to observe all 110 Messier objects and yes, Saturn was in exactly the same spot as it was when this quest first began.