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Tag Archives: science

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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.

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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

The Black Shore by Greg Cox (1997) – BR00011 (2001) – 🐸🐸🐸⚪⚪

The PolyBlog
February 18 2001

Janeway and her crew are in desperate need of shoreleave…and they receive an invitation from an uncharted planet to visit and enjoy the paradise nature of the lands. All is not necessarily as it seems, including the citizens’ treatment of their pets, the Neffaler, which seem surprisingly intelligent, almost sentient.

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Posted in Book Reviews | Tagged action, Amazon.ca, Amazon.com, B&N, book review, fiction, Good Reads, Google, Kobo, library, Library Thing, mystery, Nook, novel, paperback, political, PolyWogg, prose, sci-fi, science, series, ST:VOY, stand-alone, Star Trek | Leave a reply

Fire on High by Peter David (1998) – BR00001 (2001) – 🐸🐸🐸⚪⚪

The PolyBlog
January 20 2001

This is the sixth book about the U.S.S. Excalibur. This one sheers away from Captain Calhoun and Shelby, and focuses instead on Lefler and the return of her mother. In addition, there are extensive interactions between Selar, Burgoyne, and McHenry, trying to flesh out their characters.

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Posted in Book Reviews | Tagged action, adventure, Amazon.ca, Amazon.com, B&N, book review, crime, detective, fiction, Good Reads, Google, health, Kobo, Library Thing, mystery, Nook, novel, paperback, PolyWogg, prose, RRE, sci-fi, science, series, Shelfari, Star Trek, The New Frontier, used | Leave a reply

Red Sector by Diane Carey (1999) – BR00002 (2001) – 🐸🐸🐸🐸⚪

The PolyBlog
January 20 2001

This is the third of six books dealing with biological terrorism by an unknown foe. This novel focuses heavily on two known characters (a great portrayal of Spock and an annoying version of McCoy), and introduces a really interesting character — Ensign Eric Stiles. Stiles is assigned to evacuate Spock and friends from a planet in turmoil, but Stiles gets captured during the otherwise successful mission. Subsequent imprisonment for four years has a definite effect on Stiles and he establishes a strong bond with a fellow prisoner, Zevon. Fast forward several years and the biological terrorist has attacked the Romulans. The Romulans can’t save themselves…perhaps the Federation can help?

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Posted in Book Reviews | Tagged action, adventure, Amazon.ca, Amazon.com, B&N, book review, crime, detective, fiction, Good Reads, Google, health, Kobo, library, Library Thing, mystery, Nook, novel, paperback, PolyWogg, prose, sci-fi, science, series, ST:TNG, Star Trek | Leave a reply

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My Latest Posts

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