Tuesday, May 16, 2023

quickly skimmed Jun 23 Journal

Received a notification from head office for the Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada. 

The June 2023 edition was available for download.

Headed to web site. The web page was wonky, sheesh. Fortunately, the bottom links worked.

After downloaded, I did a quick skim.

Spotted my letter to the editor wherein I criticised the president of RASC for not indicating that double stars too can be studied easily by citizen scientists.

cover for the June 2023 Journal

Lots of wonderful photography, as usual. I once again spotted fantastic work by Katelyn Beecroft of the London Centre. I relayed the news.

There's a historical peice on the David Dunlap Observatory that looks really interesting.

Oh ho. Something new. There's a What's Up in the Sky? column, by Scott Young, with observing highlights. But, notably, from James Edgar and Glenn LeDrew, a celestial calendar for the next two months with an accompanying all-sky planetarium full-colour chart. Awfully familiar! This was my favourite thing in the SkyNews magazine! How about that.

My Binary Universe column was a bit of departure. This time I offered a retrospective rather than a review of a specific software tool. For me, it was insightful. It revealed how many of the software packages I've reviewed since February 2015 that I still use. I was most impressed to see that many of the assessments still stand up while software is constantly evolving. I also took the opportunity to provide links, references back to previous editions (not unlike what I keep on my evergreen page). I hope this will aid the new RASC member, and possibly an existing one, who is curious about a software solution.

A great issue, me thinks.

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Gah. A number of typographical and layout errors found their way into my column! Damn it.

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The print edition cannot be corrected. But the online edition was revised. Discard your old copy and download the new version...

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Enjoyed John Percy's article on the Astronomical League.

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Errata appeared in the August issue.

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