Yes folks it's the second annual Tri-tip Messier Marathon hosted by none other than the Riverside Astronomical Society!  The wonderful event takes place March 7th through the 9th at the GMARS dark sky site in beautiful Landers California!  This weekend long event boasts the fabulous Star-B-Que at 4pm on Saturday the 8th , featuring Tri-tip hot off the grill!    Do you know that Charles Messier could have bagged twice as many objects if he had eaten some Tri-tip prior to his viewing session? It's true!   So , Mark it on your calender now & We'll see ya in Landers!   

Eat a big chunk'o meat for me Dave.

Aren't you gonna be there Terry?     (The Crew)

 How was the Marathon? Did you get a good turnout?

This event turned out to be a disaster as cloud cover shut down all viewing by about 10:00pm Friday night . Even earlier there were just holes in the sky so viewing was hit & miss . Saturday morning about 5:00 the winds came in and blew all day long and into Saturday night . I peeled out of there about 8:30 pm and called it quits . I heard the winds quit about 9:30pm ..........This was my third star party with the club , and you know the old saying , "Three times is a charm" . Well I've found that the personable population of the club is far outweighed by the un personable and this doesn't sit well with me nor do I feel this is what a club should be , so it's down the road for me . So there you have it . In a nutshell .