In this Issue

Experiences at the Texas Star Party - Faith Jordan

NGC 246 in Cetus - Wolfgang Steinicke

NGC 4485/90 - Wolfgang Steinicke

Hickson Galaxy Groups Project - Owen Brazell

Hickson 15 - Ronald J Morales

Ercole Dembowski - A Life Dedicated to Astronomy - Robert Argyle and Domenico Gellera

Autumn Doubles - Andrew Robertson

Cracking Cassiopeia Star Clusters -Martin Griffiths

Book Reviews

    Viewing the Constellations with Binoculars - Bojan Kambic -  Reviewed by Melvyn Taylor

    Advancing Variable Star Astronomy - Thomas R Williams & Michael Saladyga - Reviewed by Gary Poyner

Welcome to Issue 155 of The Deep-Sky Observer.

Welcome to Issue 155 of The Deep-Sky Observer. The Society's Annual Meeting on 18 June (postponed from 4 December 2010 due to bad weather) at the Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge was a great success. Wolfgang Steinicke, Rob Kennicutt, Mark Hurn, Martin Griffiths, Andrew Robertson, Faith Jordan and David Ratledge all gave superb talks. There was also a fine selection of trade stands and Angela and Tanya Argyle did a splendid job of catering as always.

The meeting attracted a turnout of about 80 - considerably more than the 50 or so seen at the December meetings in recent years. We are not sure of the reasons for this - maybe the winter weather, Christmas shopping commitments or the large - number of astronomy meetings around the UK in the autumn put some people off from coming to Cambridge in December -  but the committee would very much like to hear members' views on the timing and, indeed, the location of the Annual Meeting. In the meantime, there is widespread agreement on the committee that next year's meeting should also be held in June, and the provisional date is Saturday 16 June 2012.

Thank you to the various members who wrote in response to my Editorial in DSO 154, which raised the possibility of a PDF version of The Deep-Sky Observer. The committee values this and the comments will be carefully considered when we discuss future ways of producing DSO. Please rest assured, however, that there are no plans to abolish the paper version of DSO - any electronic edition would be in addition to, not in place of the paper version.

This issue looks forward to the dark skies of autumn, with articles on NGC 246 (a particularly interesting planetary, and surprisingly easy to see with a filter, even from British skies), the galaxy cluster Hickson 15 and the remarkable range of double stars in autumn constellations such as Cepheus, Cassiopeia, Andromeda and Eridanus. This is the first of a series of articles by Andrew Robertson on seasonal doubles. Double stars are also given a plug with a historical article on the remarkable achievements of Ercole Dembowski, one of the great figures in the history of double star observing, who deserves to be much more widely recognised.

I have some good articles still to be published, but my stock of material for future issues is starting to run low, so please do consider submitting an article and/or images on your deep-sky observing projects. Even a brief, 'letter to the Editor'-style item can be well worth publishing.

Clear skies,

Lee Macdonald Editor

E-mail: lt@macdonald42.freeserve.co.uk

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