Have you ever done a Messier Marathon? Want to try it online from the comfort of your own home? Astrophysicist Gianluca Masi will host a webcast today (April 9, 2013) at 18:00 UTC (2 pm EDT) (update: this webcast has been postponed due to clouds. We’ll post the new date and time when it becomes available). You can join in at this link, and explore the many treasures of the famous Messier Catalog. Masi said they will try to see as many of 110 objects in the Messier Catalog as possible in a single viewing session. This is what is called a Messier Marathon!
This is the fifth time the Virutal Telescope Project has attempted this, and they’ve had great success previously. Masi is doing the Marathon their robotic telescopes, and will provide real time images and live comments, along with answering your questions and “sharing your passion and excitement with friends from all around the world.”
For more information on how to join in see the Virtual Telescope Project’s website. For more info on a Messier Marathon and how to do one, see our excellent recent post by David Dickinson.
Here’s some examples of what you will be seeing today during the webcast:
Space travel and exploration was never going to be easy. Failures are sadly all too…
It’s difficult to actually visualise a universe that is changing. Things tend to happen at…
We are all very familiar with the concept of the Earth’s magnetic field. It turns…
Solar Sails are an enigmatic and majestic way to travel across the gulf of space.…
Scientists detected the first long-predicted gravitational wave in 2015, and since then, researchers have been…
Well over 5,000 planets have been found orbiting other star systems. One of the satellites…