Writing this editorial at Christmas in 2003 always shocks me at how fast the year has gone. With four major predictable astronomical events this year, two lunar eclipses (both clouded out for me), the transit of Mercury and an annular solar eclipse, it has meant that there have been several non-deep-sky events to keep me occupied.
I have had several good runs with the 20-inch and Stewart and I had a very productive night at the Equinox Star Party picking up Abell planetaries.
The year on the DSO front has not been ideal with only three issues making it out in 2003 and this one being issued early in 2004. This has been due to production delays rather that shortage of material. However, after the next one (DSO134) we will be starting to lack material so it maybe time to get those fingers typing again.
On a Society note we have not had the best of years. Membership once again has declined. As the principle raison-de-être of the Society is its magazine I can only think that the DSO is not delivering what the membership wants. It may therefore be time for me to step down at the next AGM if we can find another editor, to try and revive the magazine/Society. It may also be, that with the increasing spread of information through the Internet, the magazine’s day may have come. Information is now spread far more quickly via electronic means than it ever could be by the medium of magazines. The only concern I have is the lack f permanence of web sites.
The Society will once again be presented at the European AstroFest and hopefully will have some new material there. We hope to have a new historical CD with a copy of the first edition of Webb’s Celestial Objects for Common Telescopes and discovery papers by Lassell and Marth on new nebulae from Malta observed with the 48-inch. There are some nice drawings here too.
Any members attending AstroFest are welcome to visit our stand where we will do our best to try and part you from your money.
The Society is holding its Annual Meeting rather later than usual in 2004 on the 19th June due to most weekends already being booked by the increasing number of British Astronomical Association meetings. It will be held again at the Institute of Astronomy in Cambridge the week before the BAA holds its annual exhibition meeting. Or main speaker will be Sir Martin Rees, the Astronomer Royal.
I must congratulate Stewart Moore on becoming the new director of the British Astronomical Association’s Deep Sky Section. I think he will have his work cut out turning that around.
On the new’s front the largest, and possibly nearest, planetary nebula has been discovered by astronomers using the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. The suspect PN is over 2° across and appears to have a DO white dwarf as its central star. It maybe near enough for parallax observations to determine the distance to the central star. It is far too faint for visual observation but maybe within the reach of CCD imagers. There may already be a CCD observation of it. The centre of the object is at RA(2000) 10h 37m -00° 18’. The object was discovered using spectra taken over the region of the sky showing the distinctive presence of OIII lines in the spectra of remote galaxies. The radial velocity of these indicated a galactic object. The paper which is on the pre-print server also gives some deep images of the object.
An amateur, Dana Patchick reports a possible new PN in Cygnus 19h 47m 03s and +29° 30’ 25”. The colours look like a PN about 10”–15” in diameter. It was found whilst inspecting DSS images.
Editor: Owen Brazell