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Welcome to Issue 150 of The Deep-Sky Observer. This issue marks a double sesquicentenary. Not only are you holding in your hands Issue 150 of the DSO, but 2009 is also the 150th anniversary of the publication of Celestial Objects for Common Telescopes by the Reverend Thomas William Webb, the inspiration of our society. Celestial Objects is not only a classic work, used by generations of amateur astronomers. It is also a great book to this day. Webb's gentlemanly prose is still a delight to read, and his descriptions of objects in the sky, although obviously very dated from a scientific point of view, are still accurate as far as the visual observer with a small telescope is concerned. Moreover, Celestial Objects is the work of someone who has actually observed the night sky and knows it thoroughly. Our thanks to Mark Robinson for his article in this issue on the early history of Celestial Objects. Current issues of The Deep-Sky Observer are numbered from the first issue of its predecessor, the Quarterly Journal, which appeared in 1968. A facsimile of the cover of that first issue is reproduced on the front cover of the present issue. DSO itself began life in 1992 as a publication for less formal articles than those in the Quarterly Journal. It ran side-by-side with the QJ before the two publications (and the Observing Section Reports) were merged in January 1998, the merged publication becoming The Deep-Sky Observer. The Quarterly Journal of the Webb Society (now the Webb Deep-Sky Society). Here is to another 150 issues, and also to the hope that Celestial Objects will still be remembered after another 150 years. A couple of more administrative matters. Our Treasurer and Membership Secretary Steve Rayner has moved to Dorset, and his new address is printed on the inside back cover of this issue. Please use this address when writing to him or renewing your subscription. His e-mail address remains the same as before. Please also note that the e-mail addresses for Don Miles and Owen Brazell have changed. We have a healthy crop of articles in this issue and I hope you enjoy the wide spread of contributions. I have received a lot of good material recently, but as always, I am keen to see more. I now have broadband internet access and can handle e-mail attachments up to about 5 MB in size. Please could you submit articles as Microsoft Word or plain text documents — no other formats, please. Images should be either JPEG "or TIFF. Please do not use any kind of compression or encoding on attachments. Our webmaster Tim Walker is also keen to receive images and other material for the website, www.webbdeepsky.com, which should also be checked for updates and notices about future events. The Society's annual meeting at Cambridge on 5 December is now all fixed up, with a line-up of excellent speakers detailed elsewhere in this issue. I hope to see as many of you as possible there. An advance date for your diaries is the BAA Deep Sky Section meeting, to be held at Northampton on 6 March 2010. Wishing you all clear, dark skies for the winter and beyond, Lee Macdonald Editor E-mail: lt@macdonald42.freeserve.co.uk |