[Lvas] Observing Notes

[roger ivester]

Fred, I am very impressed with your object list and accomplishments. There are just a very few of which keep detailed notes of their observations. You are to be commended for your lifelong endeavor of serious deep-sky observing. My compliments to you for your extra effort to continue to keep the "ancient art" of sketching and note taking alive. There are very, very few in the southeast region of astronomy clubs that do this. I get great satisfaction in comparing my notes to Tom Lorenzin, Brian Skiff, Jim Mullaney, David Eicher, and the list goes on. I have accummulated a pretty nice library over the past 32 years but find that my favorite observing guide is "Observing handbook and Catalogue Of Deep-Sky Objects" by Brian Skiff and Christian Luginbuhl. They have the "definitive" description of over 2,000 deep-sky objects. I have been using this book for the past 15 years.  When I make a presentation regarding the 101's of observing I always mention the fact...what if Messier or the Herschel's didn't keep a log? I also mention that being an artist is not necessary...the sketch is for the observer. I'm sure with all of your experience that up will agree your visual acuity will improve greatly when you attempt to sketch or describe an object. It has always been my opinion that a very experienced visual observer can add inches to their scope as compared to an observer that does not look for the fine detail.   Roger Ivester      

Windows Live™: Keep your life in sync. See how it works.
_________________________________________________________________
Windows Live™: Keep your life in sync. 
http://windowslive.com/explore?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_t1_allup_explore_012009
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lvlug.org/pipermail/lvas/attachments/20090120/5d35544e/attachment.htm