Editing
a magazine can sometimes be a tricky business.
In order to keep all our members satisfied we need a broad spectrum of
articles from observing with small telescopes and binoculars up to the large
telescopes that seem to be the preserve of our North American colleagues.
Under these circumstances any article that contains observations using
smaller instruments should be welcome.
Under certain circumstances this can cause moral problems, particularly
when the article is on objects in the Caldwell Catalogue.
My own views on this work are extreme and verge on hatred.
However, we have a conundrum. A recent poll of the committee showed members were undecided about the publishing of articles using this catalogue as its inspiration. Some came down strongly on the “not under any circumstances” side of the argument, feeling that since these objects were all adequately catalogued elsewhere there simply wasn’t any need to add yet another name to the profusion that already exists for the brighter objects. There are, of course, no objections to observations of any deep-sky object; it is simply a matter of how you choose to describe them.
Other
committee members felt that articles using the Caldwell Catalogue to
describe objects should be published with a “health warning.”
In
order to get some direction from the membership I would like to gather your
views for further guidance on whether we should support articles using the
“C” numbers rather than the more usual “M” or “NGC” etc.
On other Society news, Stewart Moore has taken over the job of looking for mew material to publish in booklet form and any ideas that members may have should be sent to him.
Some
longer standing members may remember that some time back the society used to
sell the software star charting program Megastar.
Although we no longer do, members maybe interested to know that a new
version Megastar 5 is now available from Willmann-Bell.
I believe the upgrade price is $40.
I have been doing some beta testing of the program and it has nice new
features as well as updated databases.
After
the success of the colour edition we have decided to put another one out with
the next issue so any nice colour images you may have I would appreciate getting
so we can have a good selection to work from.
Springer
after its basic astronomy series has decided that it wants to do a more advanced
series dedicated to serious amateurs under the editorship of Mike Inglis.
They would like to do three books on observing Galaxies, Star Clusters
and Nebulae. I
believe that the star cluster book may be a non-starter if the book on Star
Clusters by Brent Archinal and Steve Hynes due to be published by Willmann-Bell
comes out this year as this will be the definitive work.
We could perhaps look at getting the long overdue Volume 2 into this
series.
I
am hoping that the autumn observing season is better here in the UK than the
last year has been so we can get some articles out of some of our UK members.
It must have been some of the worst astronomical weather seen, although I
understand that the North American members have not had it much better.
I also must apologise for the late arrival of this issue. Both Don and my self have been tied up with other work commitments. Somehow one must make the money to enjoy astronomy.
Editor: Owen Brazell