Spectacular globulars, like M13 in Hercules, are among the sky’s finest sights.

Of the 147 that belong to the Milky Way, 120 are visible from mid-
northern latitudes. The vast majority of these are located in the constellations Sagittarius, Scorpius, and Ophiuchus. This image was captured by
Robert Gendler with a 6-inch refractor and an SBIG ST8E CCD camera.

observer’s notebook By Gary Seronik

A Challenging Globular Cluster Marathon

W
alter Scott Houston’s Deep-
Sky Wonders column delighted
readers of this magazine for
nearly 50 years, until his death in 1993.
Scotty, as he was known to friends, was a
keen observer of both the night sky and
the legions of amateur astronomers who
shared his passion. One theme that he
returned to with regularity was how
modern amateurs could make observa-
tions that were once simply regarded as
impossible. Every now and then he
would “bait” readers by tossing out a ca-
sual challenge — just to see if anyone
would be crazy enough to try it and
skilled enough to pull it off. For exam-
ple, in the June 1967 issue, Scotty wrote:
“For a novel challenge that can be met in
a reasonable time, I suggest the 75 globu-
lar clusters north of declination –40°
that are included in the Skalnate Pleso
Atlas Catalogue. Some of these happen to
be familiar Messier objects, while many
others are fairly difficult.”
How times have changed. Amateurs
have gone far beyond Scotty’s original
challenge and routinely pick up faint clus-
ters bearing names like Terzan 4, Liller 1,
or Djorgovski 1. Texas amateur Barbara
Wilson has observed 143 globulars in to-
tal, including 137 belonging to the Milky
Way. Clearly Scotty’s challenge has been
met, and then some.
In some sense, though, the real legacy of
nearly five decades of Deep-Sky Wonders
goes far beyond the individual columns
that Scotty penned. He inspired people. As
I noted in the very first installment of
Deep-Sky Notebook (July 1999), many of
today’s most talented observers attribute
their interest in deep-sky observing to
Scotty’s column. Indeed, Deep-Sky Note-
book itself was designed to not only pay
tribute to Scotty but also provide a forum
for amateurs who seek to continue his ex-
ploration of the deep sky.
Scotty’s influence reached far and
wide, so I was not surprised when I re-
ceived a letter recently from Les Dalrym-
ple, president of the Sutherland Astro-
nomical Society in Sydney, Australia.
Recalling the June 1967 Deep-Sky Won-
ders column, Dalrymple “set about con-
structing a list of 106 Milky Way globulars
that would be visible during the 1996
South Pacific Star Party. This was to be a
southern alternative to the Messier Mara-
thon, which cannot be completed from
midsouthern latitudes.” Thus the idea of
a globular marathon was born. Although
thwarted by fog at the 1996 event, Dal-
rymple was undeterred. Noting that a
moonless early-May window of opportu-

116 August 2000 Sky & Telescope ©2000 Sky Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.

Australian amateur Les Dalrymple tracked
down 119 of the Milky Way’s globular clus-
ters in a single marathon observing session.
nity (akin to the March Messier Mara-
thon window) provided a chance to see
the maximum number of globulars in a
single night, he drew up a new list of 120
Milky Way globulars for this year’s club
star party at Mudgee, about 200 kilome-
ters (120 miles) northwest of Sydney.
Among the Messiers and NGCs were
some very obscure and difficult objects.
Advertisement Dalrymple used the evening of May
6th to review some of the toughest tar-
gets and to familiarize himself with glob-
ulars on the list that he hadn’t seen be-
fore. At the end of the night only one
cluster on his list remained unseen: BH
176 in Norma. As darkness fell on the
7th, he prepared for the start of his 120-
object globular marathon: “I guided my
121⁄4-inch Newtonian to the location of
my first target, NGC 2419 in Lynx, and
waited for the sky to darken. Finally at
6:20 p.m. the small hazy cluster was visi-
ble — the marathon had begun!”
From this point he worked his way me-
thodically from the horizon toward the
meridian, having a few hours to locate two
dozen clusters, including difficult objects
like Palomar 3, Ruprecht 106, and Palomar
5. “At 9:30 p.m. the time had come for BH
176 — the most obscure object on the list,
having until recently been misclassified as
an open cluster. I used a Digitized Sky
Survey image to find the right spot, but I
was not expecting success. Even on the
image, the cluster was next to impossible to
see. But sure enough, when I centered the
telescopic field, there it was! I was so sur-
prised that I nearly fell off my observing
ladder. The globular was extremely faint,
but after the find was confirmed by anoth-
er observer it was duly ticked off the list.”
118 August 2000 Sky & Telescope ©2000 Sky Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.
In a Messier Marathon, the dense Virgo
Galaxy Cluster marks the make-or-break
point of the race, since a lot of objects
have to be identified in a short time. Simi-
larly, the swarm of clusters in Sagittarius,
Ophiuchus, and Scorpius are the globular
marathon’s Heartbreak Hill. Most of these
objects are reasonably bright, but there are
exceptions, such as Terzan 3 and 7.
After successfully navigating through
this maze of globulars, Dalrymple sol-
diered on and by midnight was battling IC
1257, which eventually proved to be the
biggest challenge of the campaign. “It took
a full 20 minutes of precious time staring
at the 14th-magnitude star that overlies
the cluster’s core, while the globular itself
wafted in and out of view. I sighted it
four times and felt confident enough in
the observation to check it off the list.”
At 5:00 a.m., Dalrymple made his final
observation: NGC 1261. Of the 120 clus-
ters he had targeted when the night
began, only Terzan 2 escaped his grasp.
“As I prepared to call it a night, a bril-
liant Eta Aquarid meteor lit up and left a
trail of light in the southeast. A distant
rooster greeted the growing twilight and
I retired on 119 — beaten only by a tiny,
14.3-magnitude denizen of the deep.”
Scotty would have been pleased.
So what about a Northern Hemisphere
Globular Marathon? Of the 147 known
Milky Way globulars, 120 are visible from
midnorthern latitudes. Depending on
where you are located, a globular mara-
thon is possible on any clear moonless
night from early April to late July. How
many globulars can you see in a single
night? Can anyone match Dalrymple’s
tally of 119? Is anybody willing to take
this bait? We’ll see.
Monthly Sunspot Numbers
220
200
180
160
140
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
Sep ’99 Nov Jan ’00 Mar May Jul
Pierre Cugnon of the Sunspot Index Data
Center supplied these provisional sunspot
numbers. The range of minimum and maxi-
mum daily numbers (vertical lines) and month-
ly means (connected points) are shown with
three months of predictions. Daily numbers
are available at www.oma.be/KSB-ORB/SIDC/
index.html.