Join us in this thread - as we plan the first-ever CloudyNights Team Messier Marathon. It's specifically for EAA'ers and their guests, next Saturday night, 20th of March, 2021. If you're curious about what in the world is a Messier Marathon, read more here in Wikipedia or here on Space.com or here at Messier.seds.org. See this report on doing the Marathon and these photos.)
I've created Zoom link for up to 500 people to attend. Tickets might be hot. Only the first 500 registrants will have a spot. The meeting cuts off at 500.
Anyone can participate from anywhere in the world. We'll start at 5pm Friday Saturday night, March 20th to 10am Eastern Time Saturday Sunday morning, March 21st (which would allow our friends in England AND on the West Coast to pitch in with imaging, skies cooperating, of course).
Guests are welcome and highly appreciated!
Below, we're continuing to brainstorm ideas. Join us in the planning please!
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Somehow, we'd have to work out a plan so that, once someone had located an object, he/she would note it in the chat log.
We would be pushing to log all 110 objects together as a team - via Zoom. So it would be interactive, rather than one-sided. This would also help if one person's night sky clouded over. Then he/she would be depending on other team members to pull us through.
We would record the event and, if God is with us (haha -- does he bless Messier Marathon parties?), we could create a YouTube video of the team outcome in which we reveal all Messier objects in numerical order. It would be a keepsake of which we could all be proud. We'd share the mp4 with all team members so everyone would be able to upload it to his/her YouTube channel directly so it would be fair for everyone. It would bond us together as a CloudyNights EAA "club," so to speak. We'd get to know everybody's personality a bit more - so we would all finish as better buds for sure. So we might really be able to help establish CloudyNights' EAA forum all the more as the HQ for EAA.
We could all promote it among all our constituents. Because it would be a team event, everybody's constituency would benefit. This is especially true if, say, one person's sky clouds over for just a few hours.
Of course, it could be chaos sometimes. We'd have to work out some kind of system. In the video, we could feature everyone's "view" of each object. So the recording would be cool.
I think if I provide the Zoom link for up to 500 people for the 12 hours, the least Sanjeev could do is provide ice cream and punch for everyone, right? (Let's vote on that in advance to make it official.) We would only charge someone if they damage something in the Zoom room, you know? Like if somebody kicks in a piece of drywall or breaks a window. (haha I'm joking of course) No but seriously - the whole thing would be free for everyone.
Why Friday Saturday night the 20th? Because I'm selfish. : ) haha Right now, every single night is clouded over through the 18th. Right now, it LOOKS like Astrospheric is forecasting that the weather will break on the 19th. But even if it doesn't, we could still push through. Because, see, with many of us contributing from all over the country, even if one person's sky is cloud-banked, another's might be clear. But ... more than being selfish because it looks like the weather breaks on the 20th, we could try the 20th because it gives us a week to plan for it. And I just thought of it tonight. haha
We could seek out international participants especially - so everyone is included the world over.
It sounds like a lot of work - but a lot of fun.
What do you guys think? Who's in? If you might consider taking part, please reply with suggestions and whether or not you think it would be fun.
I'm still trying to think it all through, but we could try using a link like this:
When: Mar 20, 2021 05:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada), 9PM London, 1AM Dubai, 8am Sydney through 10am ET, 2pm London, 6pm Dubai, 1am Sydney.
Register in advance for this meeting:
https://us02web.zoom...1F840EciDnXeyPo
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.
EmeraldHillsSkies (Doug) gives his word that email addresses used in registration will only be used to correspond directly for this one event and will never be shared, sold, or used again for any other purpose.
By using a registration process, we should be able to avert "Zoom room bombing" a bit. People who were only interested in disrupting the meeting would be less likely to provide a 'real' email address during the signing up process. Everyone would get their own personal registration link. So - the link above would be the public link that we'd hand out to our friends and other amateurs. But the link that Zoom emails us would be our private link that we wouldn't share with anyone else. It's like - our own private ticket.
What do you think???
Sanjeev? Errol? Gary? Al (ShadowStorm / Sky King), Frank Zephead?, Jon Isaacs?, Pirate Mike?, mikenoname? , Nick (nicknacknock), Noah4x4?, hornjs?, Roelb?, RNYboy?, Rickster? Others?
Edit: Note: Date changed from 19th to 20th
Edited by alphatripleplus, 17 March 2021 - 12:30 PM.