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Tag Archives: RASC

Observer’s Handbook, 2019 by RASC (2018) – BR00142 (2019) – 🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸

The PolyBlog
March 12 2019

Plot or Premise

This is the annual observer’s guide published by the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada.

What I Liked

Each year, the Observer’s Guide is produced and sold to amateur and professional astronomers across North America, and those astronomers vary considerably in their capacity and interests. It’s hard to serve any “one group”, but as I am at the intro stage to the hobby, I’ll review from that perspective. Some highlights include:

  • List of observatories, star parties, planetaria (pp 11-14);
  • Observable satellites of the planets (pp 25-26);
  • Observing artificial satellites (p 38);
  • Overview of filters (pp 64-67);
  • Deep-sky observing hints by Alan Dyer (pp 85-87);
  • Lunar observing (pp 158-161);
  • The brightest stars (pp 274-283, 285); and,
  • The deep sky (pp 307-337).

Of course, it also has the key reference materials:

  • The Moon (pp 148-157);
  • The Sun (pp 184-193);
  • Dwarf and minor planets (pp 241-251); and,
  • Double and multiple stars (pp 291-294, 296-297).

And it has specific highlights for the year:

  • The Sky month-by-month (pp 94-121);
  • Times of sunrise and sunset for 2019 (pp 205-207);
  • 2019 transit of Mercury (pp 139-143);
  • The planets in 2019 (pp 211-229); and,
  • Comets in 2019 (p 264).

I’m happy too that some of the errors in URLs published last year have been corrected.

What I Didn’t Like

I still find the pages on telescope exit pupils (pp 50-53) to be incredibly dense. I keep meaning to find a more basic set of explanations online of it, but I never seem to get around to it. I would add the next section on magnification and contrast in deep sky observing (pp 54-57) as equally confusing. I have to believe that dense text can somehow be explained more easily to the newbie with some basic guidelines for common scopes and ages of users. Equally, I’m not thrilled with the astrophotography section (pp 91-93) which still lists the “big cameras” as best, in the same way that many photography websites ten years ago suggested that professionals would never go digital. There is an emerging market for people sharing prime shots they take with their smartphones — souvenir quality shots, not NASA shots — and it is almost completely ignored by the section (grudgingly it says “even cell phones”). I also find that the economic bias of last year towards higher-end binoculars and scopes continues. But those issues are mostly me just being picky — they aren’t enough to reduce the overall rating.

Disclosure

I received a copy of the guide as part of my annual membership in RASC.

The Bottom Line

Excellent edition for the year.

Posted in Book Reviews | Tagged 2019, Amazon.ca, Amazon.com, astronomy, astrophotography, book review, Good Reads, hobbies, Library Thing, new, non-fiction, OPL, paperback, PolyWogg, prose, RASC, reference, science, self-help, series, technology, textbook | Leave a reply

Observer’s Handbook, 2018 by RASC (2017) – BR00114 (2017) – 🐸🐸🐸🐸⚪

The PolyBlog
November 11 2017

This is the annual observer’s guide published by the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada.

Continue reading →
Posted in Book Reviews | Tagged Amazon.ca, Amazon.com, astronomy, astrophotography, book review, Good Reads, hobbies, Library Thing, new, non-fiction, OPL, paperback, PolyWogg, prose, RASC, reference, science, self-help, series, technology, textbook | 2 Replies

#50by50 #18 – Read The RASC Observer’s Handbook 2018

The PolyBlog
November 1 2017

Despite the fact that I bought my telescope five years ago, I consider myself relatively new to astronomy. Mainly because of the myriad of alignment challenges that I’ve had over the last five years, I feel like I’m starting fresh, albeit with more knowledge than most enter the hobby. I’ve done some basic starhopping, attended numerous RASC meetings, gone to star parties, done some outreach. You know, got my feet wet. As a RASC member, I also get the annual RASC Observers Handbook. Yet for the last five years, it’s been hit or miss with me whether it was useful. … Continue reading →

Posted in Goals | Tagged 2018, 50by50, astronomy, book review, goals, handbook, Observers, RASC | Leave a reply

Two star parties back to back

The PolyBlog
October 24 2017

This past weekend, skies were looking promising and so I planned to do two star parties back to back. Friday night was the first one in Carp, the last RASC star party of the year. I’m not only a member, but I’m also actually serving as the acting star party coordinator. We have marshals though to cover if I’m not actually there, so mainly my job is to send out the notification emails in advance as reminders, and then make the call for the day before or day of the event. I was a bit later arriving there than I … Continue reading →

Posted in Experiences | Tagged astronomy, AstroPontiac, RASC, star party, viewing | 2 Replies

#50by50 #05 – Re-start my astronomy hobby

The PolyBlog
July 6 2017

When I set my goals for the year (Goals for 2017 – Nudging the needle), I had some astronomy goals in mind. Specifically, under my blue goals, I wanted: Astronomy: Fixed battery supplies + 1 viewing…I want to attend the RASC annual meeting, do at least 1 viewing at Star Party+Luskville+cottage, but I’ll start with 1 viewing. And work on reading the new RASC guidebook for the year. and under my yellow goals I had: Astrophotography: One decent shot…Sure, I would like to do more. Level 2 would likely be a complete set of moon phases (1/4, 1/2, 3/4, full). … Continue reading →

Posted in Goals | Tagged 50by50, age, astronomy, astrophotography, bucket list, goals, RASC | Leave a reply

Countdown to Retirement

Days

Hours

Minutes

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Retirement!

My Latest Posts

  • Gallery: 2004 – June – Seb & Patricia’s weddingSeptember 19, 2023
    The resort/auberge, Seb and Patricia’s ceremony at the church, reception, and the drive back to Ottawa the next day
  • Gallery: 2004 – June – Bike ride, baby shower, anniversary flowers and wedding showerSeptember 18, 2023
    Bike ride along the river, baby shower for Stephan and Myung, anniversary flowers, and wedding shower for Alex
  • Gallery: 2004 – May – Tulip Festival, housewarming, and cottage lifeSeptember 18, 2023
    Dinner guests (Robyn, Aliza); the Tulip Festival around the Arboretum and Dow’s Lake; a large housewarming; and then opening the cottage for May long weekend
  • Gallery: 2004 – April – Moving day, dinner guests, and EasterSeptember 17, 2023
    Moving into the new house at Parkdale, our first dinner guests (Becky and Dean) and Easter in Peterborough
  • 2003 – A year in 4 photosSeptember 17, 2023
    Since Andrea and I didn’t yet have a digital camera, the photos in my digital collection for 2003 are all ones that were scanned at some point, partly as I recall, to go on the new PolyWogg website I was designing at the time. In March, Andrea took a work trip to Hong Kong. There … Read more

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