There are two nights every year, one in early Spring and another in late Fall, when any avid amateur astronomer can observe in one night all 110 deep sky objects catalogued by French astronomer Messier back in the 18th century.

On March 19, 2004 my goal was not only to observe, but also to image as many Messier objects as I could thus performing an Imaging Messier Marathon.

My Messier Marathon started right at dusk, at 7:56 PM local time and it ended the next morning with dawn rapidly approaching at 6:43 AM.

I was able to observe and image a total of 90 Messier objects.  

 I used my Televue 85 mm refractor at f/5 and an SBIG ST7E camera.  Most of the images are 120 sec exposures.

Links to all the images (not in chronological order) are below.