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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

My Latest Posts

  • Deadlines, dominoes, and delaysJanuary 30, 2023
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  • Curated: We Need To Talk About Professional Jealousy – Electric LiteratureJanuary 20, 2023
    I occasionally like to share online articles that I like, and you’ll see sporadic posts entitled “Articles I Like” throughout the blog. But honestly, Curated is probably a more accurate title. I recently found an article by Benjamin Schaefer on the website Electric Literature, although I was led there by ThePassiveVoice website. The article is … Continue reading →
  • Schrodinger’s computer purge (part 1 / 3)January 15, 2023
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  • Some more reading ideas…January 15, 2023
    Chapters/Indigo has their Reading Challenge for the year too. They do it up like a bingo card, but the headings are: I’ll have to go through some of the links to see if there’s anything I want to add to my long list. 🙂
  • 11 years, a gig platform, and a chequeJanuary 13, 2023
    Somewhere in this universe, if life after death exists, my father is rolling over in his grave. Or rolling his eyes, shrugging his shoulders, throwing up his hands…whatever the ghosts do when they see their descendants doing stuff that they think is ridiculous. And it is NOT my father’s fault. Let me be clear. He … Continue reading →

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