Welcome to Issue 148 of The Deep-Sky Observer.
I hope you enjoy the selection of articles in this issue. Ron Buta presents the final part of his long-running 'Dream Period' series on his experiences of visual observing using professional telescopes. This time he discusses his observations of galaxies. The galaxies theme is continued by Jenni Kay, who presents a major new challenge: to observe and image all the barred-spiral galaxies in the NGC catalogue. John Moore writes about imaging deep-sky objects from Tenerife, complementing the article by Owen Brazell in DSO 146, which described visual observations from the same location. This issue also sees the return of the popular 'Object of the Season' column, with objects for both northern and southern observers.
I would like to apologise for the poor reproduction of many images in DSO 147, especially the colour pictures on the cover. This was caused by production problems beyond our control. Also, the front cover image of the Pleiades star cluster, M45 (incorrectly identified as M42 in the caption inside the front cover) was wrongly attributed to Paul McGale; it was, in fact, taken by Derrick Farley. We offer our apologies to both individuals and hope to do a better reproduction of Derrick's fine image in a future issue of The Deep-Sky Observer.
My plea in the Editorial of DSO 147 for more articles and images received an excellent response, and there is now enough material for at least one issue of the magazine after this one. In the long run, however, more articles and images will be needed, so do please keep writing. Long-time observer Ron Morales has made the interesting suggestion that we have a column in which readers can post their questions and comments on articles that have appeared in the DSO, and send in observations of their own in response to DSO articles. I think this is an excellent idea, and would like to expand it into a general letters page, in which readers can contribute their own observations, ideas and views on deep-sky observing as well. Indeed, the DSO did have a letters column in its early days. But such a column needs your contributions to keep going. If you have made an interesting observation or would like to respond to any of the articles in this or earlier issues, then do send me a piece of not more than 500 words, plus any relevant drawings or images. If I get a good response, I hope to start this new column in the next issue.
The Society held a very successful Annual Meeting at Cambridge in December 2008, which received some very enthusiastic feedback. The next annual meeting will be held on 5 December 2009, again at the Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge. More details will appear in future issues of the magazine and on the Society's website, www.webbdeepsky.com, as they appear. In the meantime, we can look forward to the BAA Deep-Sky Section meeting on Saturday 7 March. This year, it returns to its traditional venue at the Humfrey Rooms, Castilian Terrace, Northampton, and the Webb Society will be among the trade stands there.
Wishing you all clear skies,
Lee Macdonald
Editor
E-mail: lt@macdonald42.freeserve.co.uk