The editorial of this Deep Sky Observer begins on a sad note, John Larard one of the founding members of the Society has died a short note from Guy Hurst is included here and a more detailed obituary will follow.
It is with considerable regret that I must advise you that John Larard died last Friday at a nursing home in Camberwell. He had been unwell and suffered a series of falls in 2006 but more recently contracted pneumonia. The news was conveyed to us today in a telephone call from his wife to whom we extend sincere sympathies.
John was the first secretary of the magazine when it was inaugurated as 'The Casual Astronomers' at a meeting in Caxton Hall on Thursday 1964 April 2 with Jim Muirden as the founding editor.
Even after ceasing his duties for the magazine he stayed in touch with the editorial team and attended one annual meeting of 'The Astronomer' in Birmingham where he gave a short talk.
Aside from TA, when I joined the Webb Society it was Ed Barker and John Larard who provided wonderful guidance on the art and techniques of visual observing. John was very keen on all aspects of deep sky objects and encouraged me to attempt to draw star clusters as accurately as possible with a view to obtaining as much detail as possible at the eyepiece. This guidance remains valuable to this day.
I should add that John's series in 'The Astronomer', which was called 'From the Night Sky', proved to be vintage observing material and readers shared the excitement of detecting a faint nebulae or splitting a close double through 'John's eyes'.
We owe a great debt of gratitude to this classical observer and his support and hard work for our organisation.
This edition of the DSO practically uses up all the material in the bank as they say and I would encourage anybody who has any material to send it in. The down time for northern observers introduced by summer twilight gives you an excellent time to write that article you always wanted to! Most material is published.
I also must apologize for the increasing erratic appearance of the magazine. It is sometimes difficult after 15 years to get out of bed as they say and I would welcome any help in getting the magazine together. I have always found that my interest in astronomy is driven by my observing and over the last few years work has reduced that to a trickle.
An observing run that Stewart and I made to Tenerife a report of which will follow in the next Deep Sky Observer was reduced by snow to only 1.5 nights. It does seem to be a global phenomenon as I noted that both this year Texas Star Party and the Winter Star Party had to contend with a large number of nights lost due to inclement weather.
On the Society front the website at http://www.webbdeepsky.com/ continues to get better all the time thanks to Tim Walker.
The Society’s 40th anniversary
meeting on December 1st at the Institute of Astronomy in Cambridge is also coming
together well with Ron Buta, Derrick Farley, Ed Barker and Paul McGale so far
confirmed as speakers. Look on the Web site for more information.
Editor: Owen Brazell