Last March, Akila Prabhu did the Messier Marathon in Yelagiri with her daughter. The senior project management analyst at Frost and Sullivan is now lacing up for her second run at it this March. If you’re wondering, it isn’t a run on the ground, but a race for the stars.
The Messier Marathon, which takes place around the globe, is an attempt by amateur astronomers to find as many Messier objects as possible in one night. The task involves finding 110 relatively bright deep-sky objects such as galaxies, nebulae and star clusters.
The Messier Marathon is just one of the several astro-vacations that Chennai-based astronomer Neeraj Ladia, CEO of Space Aracade (part of the SPACE group of companies) organises throughout the year.