The Webb Deep-Sky Society

Editorial  -  Quarterly Journal 123 Winter 2000/1

    It is now almost ten years since I started editing DSO and it is interesting to note the changes that have happened in that time.  We started putting out the DSO with the demise of the Deep Sky magazine in the faint hope that we could perhaps grow the society with picking up some of those readers with a more readable publication than the old QJ with its much more serious image.  The merging of the society's publications has reflected the decrease in material submitted for publication, although going from A5 to A4 in format has meant that more material is published.  I think we publish more information than Deep Sky ever did despite the lack of pages as we do not have advertising or use full page images or charts.

    The membership did grow for a while and has then fallen steadily over the last few years.  This is a trend that seems to be echoed by most of the national type societies that I am a member of.  Most of the membership fall in the Webb Societies case appears to have been amongst our UK base which is unfortunate but perhaps can be attributed to the appalling weather sequences we have suffered over the last couple of years.

    Replies I get from UK members who are resigning also indicate that they feel that the increasing number of articles dedicated to large telescope observing has put them off.  This is a shame as the last couple of issues, and the upcoming one deal with observations from a number of observers with smaller instruments.  It is also thought that the increasing number of very large instruments in the hands of US amateurs in particular has coloured the discussions on the main e-mail discussions list along with some very interesting observational claims which have sparked some controversy between European and US amateurs.  It is very difficult to believe some of the claims put forward in spite of the obviously better observing conditions in most cases and one suspects a certain degree of one-upmanship is taking place.  I do know that amongst the UK amateur community deep sky observing is still very popular and a large number of people turned up to the BAA Deep Sky Section's 20th anniversary meeting. 

    On the magazine front although I do have articles for the next issue as usual I am short for beyond that so if you have any articles in the pipeline then I look forward to receiving them.  On the observational front Steve Gottlieb noted that he had no observations for a galaxy section report which is rather worrying.  There also appears to have been a significant slowdown in the material on the Internet with nothing new appearing on Doug Snyder's planetary nebula site for almost 5 months and not a lot new on Jim Shields' site.  A few other sites have sprung up which may have good deep sky content.

    The national specialist magazines such as Ciel Extreme from France and the revived Intestellarum from Germany indicate that deep sky observing is burgeoning beyond the English speaking world which is interesting given that both DSO and NSDOS appear to have problems getting material for their publications. 

    I also see the battle being lost against one of my pet hates, the Caldwell Catalogue.  Despite my best efforts it appears to be becoming more accepted with books dedicated to it, some of which are truly awful.  Although it might be said that any list which gets people out to look at the deep sky is good this one really should have been still born.

    I hope to see some of you at the Webb AGM in May.  As usual it has an international flavour with Rich Jakiel coming over from the US and Ronald Stoyan from Germany to present the way that deep sky observing is going in those two powerhouses.

Editor: Owen Brazell

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