The Spring season here in the UK has not been the best for observing, at least for myself. The first major star party of the year saw winds in excess of 70mph, which is not that good for tents. Eight Kendrick tents were wrecked along with a Meade being blown over. To make matters worse the main night was crystal clear but with winds at 40mph, it was too strong to observe. My tent also broke and you do not get much sleep in a car!
Whilst giving some of the talks I do around local societies a common theme has arisen about the name of the society. When the society was formed one of the few books about deep sky observing that was generally available was T.W.Webb’s Celestial Objects for Common Telescopes and observers know who Webb was. Unfortunately very few of the current generation of observers understand who Webb was and the name no longer has the connotations that it had previously. Although it may be thought of as a heresy, perhaps it is time to start thinking about a name for the society to reflect more what we stand for? Maybe this would help us gain more members. It would be interesting to know members’ thoughts on this.
With deep sky mow more popular than ever one would hope that a deep sky society would benefit and with all the equipment available it has never been a better time to do deep sky observing. A thorn in our side, however, is increasing light pollution. It would be nice to see a dark sky preserve in the UK similar to those in other countries. However, with a small island with 60 million people it is always going to be difficult to get that far from lights.
Perhaps one of the major stories of the first part of the year was the discovery of a new nebula in Orion by Jay McNeil. This turned out to be a new outburst of a star/nebula, that although it had been recorded in Evered Kreimenr’s photograph of M78 which was published in The Messier Album, and also probably other images taken at the time, it was not noted. It shows what can be done using a relatively small telescope (an 80mm refractor in this case) and a CCD camera, if you study the images you take. It turned out that the outburst had been recorded but not noticed in December. Our congratulations go to Jay and hopefully there will be a piece on this nebula and it’s discovery in a future issue of this magazine.
There are various aspects of Society news. Due to changes at my ISP my e-mail has had various incarnations but the current one is….owen@online.rednet.co.uk….and hopefully that will remain for a while.
The Society’s Annual Meeting in June at the Institute of Astronomy in Cambridge was a huge success, some visitors even describing it as “the best ever”. The main speakers were Sir Martin Rees, the Astronomer Royal and Steve Mandel. A full report will appear in a subsequent DSO.
The Society had a very successful AstroFest and gained a few new members as well as selling many CDs. These help cover our costs of going as well as providing income for the society. The newest CD in the historical series covers a first edition of Webb’s Celestial Objects for Common Telescopes as well as drawings by Marth and Lassell. We are hoping to produce a third CD in this series which will be John Herschel’s Observations from the Cape but this is providing rather challenging!
If you have any thoughts on subjects which would make suitable CD material, both for Society members and for the astro-community at large, then we would be pleased to hear from you. The income from these is vital to keep our magazine going in its present form, especially with the advent of colour pages in at least one and we hope more than one, issue during each year.
Footnote: Owen has now moved house. If you intend sending any material for the magazine by post, please ensure you use the new address given. 15 Spinage Close, Faringdon, Oxfordshire SN7 7BW.
Editor: Owen Brazell