Memory lane - Webb Society Deep Sky Handbook Volume 6

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Memory lane - Webb Society Deep Sky Handbook Volume 6 - Anonymous Galaxies

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This book brings back memories of the beginnings of observing obscure deep sky objects. Picked it up back in the late 80s, probably 1989.
Just reread the first 34 pages. Last time I read this book was probably in the early 90s and brings me to the roots of how I observe and most of you too.

The rest of the book is a catalogue of 165 "anonymous" galaxies. Most of the objects have at something bright nearby as a reference point. It was because we didn't have any advanced atlas available at the time other than the Palomar Deep Sky Survey plates.

Now we have several advanced star atlas plus electronic atlas, let alone go to telescopes. Observing changed a lot in the last 20 years, probably closer to 30.

I'm still an old school star hopper and can find stuff pretty quick without GOTO. In fact I done have any go-to technology on any of my telescopes, just a tracking platform. Been doing this a really long time even before go to existed and got used it m to it. Many of the objects in my lists on my website does not have an NGC object nearby.
This book was one of the main catalysts for me to start observing stuff that most people don't observe. I had a 16" telescope at the time, recently graduated from a Criterion RV6 and Celestron C8.

Who else have this book? What got you started in obscure deep sky observing?

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I've been out of serious deep sky observing for close to 10 years, so I lost some touch of cool resources other than various papers in research journals, etc. Any "new" resources to look for?

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Hi Alvin,
nice book, don´t have it either. For me observing strange unknown objects began with the Palomar Deep Sky Survey indeed. I like to pan around in wikisky/ Aladin and come across something new, that looks either weird or beautiful and could probably within reach of my 12". And if not i am at least looking forward to check that kind of objects out in huge dobsonians at Telescope Meetings.

CS
Norman

We still have copies in the Webb Soc of this volume for sale :-)

I have all the Webb books and even some of the newsletters from the '80s when I was a member of the Webb Society. Kenneth Glyn Jones was the leader and a great guy to correspond with about all subjects deep sky.