Cumbrian Sky

So, I finally went to see “Rogue One” last night, at the Brewery Arts Centre here in Kendal. I was, to be honest, scared stiff about seeing it. Would it be ruined (like films today so often are for me, because some selfish, ignorant *******s go to see films now, don’t they?) by a chatty chav talking through it behind me, or by someone scrunching and crunching their way through a huge bag of crisps or popcorn next to me? Would it be as good as all the reviews were saying it is?

Would it be as good as I wanted… as I needed… it to be?

Thankfully the answers to those questions were “No”, “Yes” and “Oh my god, yes”…

Rogue One is actually two different films. If you’re not “into” Star Wars, Rogue One is a brilliant action film in its own right, with likeable heroes, boo-hiss baddies, thrilling spaceship dogfights and lots of edge-of-the-seat suspense. It’s a modern day space age “Guns of Navarone” or “Dirty Dozen”.

But.. if you are into Star Wars – if you have beloved memories of watching the original films, and still have nightmares about sitting through the godawful “prequels”… if the opening notes of the main fanfare always make you grin like an idiot… if the Imperial March makes you start breathing raspily like Darth Vader… if you look at toys of X Wings and TIE Fighters and have to stop yourself from buying one – then Rogue One is wonderful, just wonderful. It looks like Star Wars, sounds like Star Wars, has as huge a heart as Star Wars. I genuinely left the Brewery Arts Centre last night shaking, but grinning too, just as I did in 1977 after watching Star Wars as a kid.

I’m not going to post any spoilers here, don’t worry. I know how much I would have hated having the film ruined for me before seeing it so I absolutely will not do that to anyone else. But I will say that he way it links visually to “Star Wars” – making it look as if it is set in the same universe at the same time as Star Wars by using very familiar technology and locations, costumes, etc – is superb; unlike the prequels, which were just too shiny, too glossy, with technology that looked like it was centuries ahead of that seen in the original trilogy instead, “Rogue One” is very definitely set at the same grubby, troubled time.

And there are lots of lovely visual nods to the original films too, which instantly connect it to those films. Again, not going to say what they are, I want you to experience them for yourselves and have those “That’s just like…!” moments come at you from nowhere. But you will smile. A lot.

And it is a beautiful film to just look at too. There are so many beautiful scenes, so many sighs of wonder as you see something breathtakingly beautiful on the screen that it should come with a warning for people with weak hearts. The views of planets from space are just jaw-droppingly lovely. And the appearance of familiar Empire technology – already seen in the trailers – is deliciously jolting.

As for the characters…. they are all very well written, very grounded, unlike most of the characters in the prequels. As with all good war movies – and at its heart Rogue One is a good old fashioned war movie – it is the story of real, everyday people forced into a fight and forced to do desperate things at a desperate time. Jyn Erso is a kick ass heroine with a  heart, and her war buddies all feel like real people with real histories.

And there is, thankfully, no Jar Jar character in Rogue One. In fact, this film will go a long way towards exorcising your ghosts of the prequels. It will help you forget that “What? You’re having a laugh!!!” gumpf about ‘midochlorians’. It will help you forget a young, mop-topped Annakin shouting “Yippee!” It will help you forget how R2D2 could suddenly and very conveniently fly, and forget that there was as much chemistry between Annakin and Padme as there is between Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn. And yes, I know some people like those films, and I can find some good things in them too – the last half hour of “Sith” is brilliant – but if you’re at all worried, don’t be. This, THIS is a Star Wars film.

It’s not a perfect film, obviously – no film is perfect. Some scenes go on too long, some plot holes are big enough to fly a Star Destroyer through… but so what? I didn’t care! This is the film I desperately wanted it to be – a genuine Star Wars film that, with the way it looks and feels, picked me up and took me back in time to 1977 when I was 12 and sat in the cinema and was carried away, for the first time, to that galaxy far, far away.  It breathes new life into the whole saga, and made me want to watch Star Wars again right away.

You know what? I actually envy the kids who will be introduced to the Star Wars saga through Rogue One because it will be bigger, grander, nobler because of it.

Sometimes you want something to be good so badly it can’t possibly live up to your expectations. Rogue One did. And I can’t wait to see it again.

Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a comment »

…and so we come to my final review of the guides to the night sky during the year ahead…

The guides and yearbooks I’ve reviewed so far have all been commercial, professional publications – glossy and lavishly-illustrated, and available in every town’s newsagents and/or bookshops. “Night Scenes” is very different. It’s an amateur-produced publication, written by astronomer, writer and Outreacher Paul Money, who many people will know from “Sky At Night” magazine (he is their Reviews Editor) and the astronomy society guest speaker and lecture circuit.

That’s NOT to say “Night Scenes” isn’t professionally produced by Paul and his team. It certainly is. I’m just making the point that it’s not a mass-market publication like the other guides available from, say, Astronomy Now, Sky at Night magazine and Collins.

“Night Scenes” is, I don’t think he’ll mind me saying, a real labour of love for Paul, and reading it is like listening to one of his talks – there is so much crammed into it, so enthusiastically, it leaves you a little breathless! As you can see from the pic below, essentially it follows the same basic format as the other guides: each month has its own section, with an “all” sky chart showing the stars, constellations and planets, complemented by additional charts – Stellarium-generated with additional labelling – showing notable planetary conjunctions, eclipses, occultations and the paths of asteroids and comets. Unlike the other guides, tho, “Night Scenes” features monthly fold-out spreads…

As you can probably tell from that pic, “Night Scenes” is a lot busier than the other publications; there’s not a spare centimetre on any page, with the text going tight up to the edge of the charts and diagrams, flowing around them like water, showing – in a good way – how it is more like an amateur-produced desk top publishing production than a professional one. and that’s not a criticism, just an observation. In fact, there’s so much on its pages you feel like you have to shut it very quickly in case everything slides off them and comes pouring out, like That Cupboard everyone has at home..!

But don’t let that busy look fool you. It’s busy in a good way. The guide is very informative and once you’ve got the hang of what its charts are showing and how to use them it will help absolute beginners and more experienced amateurs alike identify things in the night sky, and plan in advance when to look out for attractive gatherings of planets and close encounters between planets and the Moon…

But they ALL do that, I know. So what makes this guide different, if indeed it is different?

Well, for a start there are no filler articles or features, and no adverts. It’s just a big bottle of freshly squeezed night sky watching with the pulp left in. And this guide is clearly written by a genuine sky-watcher, someone who stands out in the cold on those oh-so-rare clear UK nights and actually LOOKS AT STUFF UP THERE. As I have said many times before, the test of a good guide of this kind is to hear the author’s real voice when you read it, and “Night Scenes” passes that test with flying colours.

I asked Paul about his guide…

How long have you been producing the guide?

First one was for the year 2000, originally for my WEA classes, so I printed the first two years myself with my poor inkjet printer which finally went on strike! It was commercially printed the first time for the 2002 edition.

What made you start producing your own when there were already so many available commercially?

At the time there weren’t many available at all. The main rivals were actually the ones produced by the Times and FAS. Both did not feature full colour charts and with modern desktop publishing becoming available to anyone, I wanted to produce something different to the mainstream.

Who is the guide aimed at?

Anyone interested in looking up at the night sky with naked eye, some binoculars sights and a few that need a modest telescope. No experience required, just curiosity at seeing things like conjunctions between moon and planets/ stars etc.

Why do you think guides such as yours are still useful when there are phone and tablet apps that do the same thing?

It doesn’t require batteries and if used at night in the field, a red light torch is just the job compared with bright screens. Also, not all apps have an option for predicting in advance when something will happen, forewarned is to be prepared and NightScenes can be picked up and browsed easily to the month needed rather than messing about with time settings in an app.

So… if you’re looking for a big, glossy, luxurious guide to the night sky in 2017, lavishly illustrated with photos taken by “amateur” astronomers with kit so big and so expensive you will only ever own it in a dream, then follow this guy’s advice…

But if you’re looking for a no frills practical observing guide to 2017’s sky events, written by an enthusiastic and knowledgeable observer, and don’t mind that it has typos on many pages or that most of its commas have gone absent without leave, then this will do you very well over the coming 12 months. Highly recommended.

_________________________________________________________________

Night Scenes 2017

£7.00

Enquiries to ASTROSPACE PUBLICATIONS [email protected]

Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a comment »

Yes, the Sky At Night 2017 Yearbook has finally appeared on the shelves in Kendal’s WH Smiths, so I can complete my annual review of all the various yearbooks/guides available in newsagents.

In previous years the SaN Yearbook has been sold as a stand-alone publication, like a special edition of the magazine. Popular with newcomers to astronomy and more experienced amateurs alike, it features what you’d expect from a yearbook – a guide to the sky for each month, plus articles and features to help you get the most out of the astronomical year ahead. This year the SaN team has done things a little differently by making the yearbook part of a “Bumper Value Stargazing Pack” – obviously aimed at the ‘the perfect gift for Christmas’ market just as much as the existing amateur astronomer market – which looks like this on the shelf…

As you can see from the cover of the big envelope, and from the photo at the top of this post, the package comprises the yearbook itself, a planisphere and a Moon phases chart. (it doesn’t include the cute sleeping cat, by the way, before anyone asks…)

I have to be honest, I had mixed feelings handing over my £13 when I bought this. One part of me – the “I’m already an amateur astronomer” part – was rather grumpily thinking “Hang on, I just want the Yearbook, I don’t need another planisphere and I don’t need a chart of Moon phases because I can get those on my phone…” I always enjoy reading the yearbook, and find it useful, but the two “extras” were things I personally neither wanted nor needed, and seemed rather unnecessary to me. I felt a little bit pressured into buying them as part of this package. Having said that, of course I could have bought the Yearbook on its own by post, but it’s been a part of my “look for and buy the yearbooks and guides” ritual for years now, and I was rather annoyed to not be able to do that this year.

But… looking at this from the point of view of someone starting out in the hobby, or from the point of view of someone looking for a gift for someone starting out in the hobby, this is a great package. A newcomer – especially someone not savvy (yet… they will be, oh, they will be…) with the world of astronomy apps for phones and tablets – will find this package the perfect front door to go through into the world of stargazing. The planisphere will be very useful to them as they learn the sky and how it works, and the Moon phases chart will be a handy quick-look guide too.  So, I can see both sides. I guess the “package” wasn’t aimed at me as a buyer, and that’s ok.

So, what’s the actual Yearbook like?

It’s a classy product, for sure. The heart of the Yearbook is, of course, its guide to what will be visible “up there” in the year ahead, and this year’s “Month by Month Guide” really is very, very good. Written by Pete Lawrence, in the same warm, friendly, refreshingly hype-free tone he uses on the TV show, reading it really is like standing in your own garden and having your very own personal stargazing tour from a knowledgeable amateur astronomer. The monthly charts accompanying Pete’s text are very detailed and “busy”, with lots of features and targets labelled, with notes at the bottom re the visibility of planets, the Moon etc.

This year the “events” illustrations – the images showing planetary conjunctions, eclipses, things like that – look really nice, better than in previous years I think, and I am sure they will be much more useful to newcomers than the main charts.

Around the Yearbook’s Month by Month Guide are various other sections, providing lots of great observing and technical advice for amateurs and beginners alike, plus some interesting projects to get stuck into in 2017. There are equipment reviews, photography guides and more. One of the highlights of the Yearbook is a section written by Will Gater: “Secrets of Selene” focuses on the Moon, and picks out twenty lunar features for amateurs to find and enjoy.

This will be really useful for beginners – especially those who got into the hobby because of the whole (yawn) “Supermoon” thing – and more experienced observers alike, especially. It could only have been improved if it had included some of Will’s gorgeous lunar sketches… (not-too-subtle hint for the next Yearbook there!) And on a purely selfish, personal note, it was great to see the crater “Eddington” (named after the great astronomer Sir Arthur Eddington who was born in my town) getting some love, as it’s often overlooked in Moon guides and books.

As you’d expect for a modern astronomy publication the Yearbook is lavishly illustrated, with some gorgeous photos. One thing that struck me is the amount of exposure (sorry!) given in the Yearbook to the “Insight Astronomy Photographer Of The Year” contest. 32 of the Yearbook’s 116 pages are covered with entries to the contest, which is almost a third, and that seems a bit excessive to me.

I know they’re gorgeous photos, and the winners will all be as proud as parents watching their child dressed as an angel or a wise man in their first school Nativity Play when they see their images used in the Yearbook, I would be too, but I am wondering now if the magazine isn’t using these photos a bit too much..? Don’t get me wrong, the photos are lovely, and each one represents a great achievement by an individual. I just worry that they might intimidate as many people as they inspire, as some of them are taken with such expensive, high-tech kit that they are way beyond the capabilities of all but a few of the publication’s readership. Personally I would have preferred that 8 page section of the Yearbook, or at least some of it, to have been used for something more useful to an absolute beginner -maybe a feature on phone or tablet astronomy apps or websites (which I am asked about all the time), observing the space station and Iridium flares (both of which are very popular activities for sky-watchers now) or book recommendations, something like that. But maybe that’s just me thinking as an Outreacher who spends a lot of time helping absolute beginners get “into” the hobby. Others will find this section very useful and inspiring, I’m sure.

So, after all that do I recommend the 2017 Sky At Night Yearbook? Absolutely! There’s genuinely something in it for everyone, bright-eyed newcomer or weather-weary veteran. If I had one major criticism it would be this: as this is a publication produced by The Sky At Night, which has always had a kind of “mission statement” to help absolute beginners see things without lots of equipment or technology, and although Pete gives great basic observing advice in his monthly notes,  I would have loved – and I expected – to have found a section dedicated solely to absolute basics stargazing: what you can see just standing in your garden, looking up on a clear night, explaining the very basics about star brightnesses, the constellations they appear to make in the sky, what meteor showers and aurorae really look like, and how to tell planets and stars apart, etc. That’s missing from the Yearbook, and I think that’s a shame. Maybe something to bear in mind for the 2018 Yearbook, guys…

The 2017 Sky At Night Yearbook is available on newsagents now, and by mail order from the magazine too. With only those few reservations about some of its content I can definitely recommend the “Bumper Value Stargazing Pack” to you if you’re just starting out in the hobby, or looking for a gift for someone who is.

Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a comment »

Note: book does not come with sleeping cat.

At this time of year, hoping to grab a piece of the Christmas gift market, publishers are releasing books faster than Donald Trump can post paranoid nonsense on Twitter, and Philip’s is no exception. They have just released a new astronomy title, called rather grandly, “The Essential Guide To Space” (hereafter just going to be referred to as “The Guide” ok? I’m not typing out its full title every time!), written by science journalist and Society for Popular Astronomy stalwart Paul Sutherland. So, is it “essential”? And with soooo many astronomy books being published, is there enough new and different in it to make it “the perfect gift for Christmas” as they say in the ads nowadays?

Firstly, in the interests of full disclosure, I should say that I know the author. I work with Paul on the SPA Council and on the SPA Facebook page, etc, but this review is going to be neutral and honest, just as he’d want it to be. No point doing it otherwise!

Ok. So, The Guide is a good old fashioned “hefty” space book, heavy and very well made, the kind that sits comfortably on the shelf in a school library’s “science” section and almost displaces the fabric of time and space as you lift it. Inside, as you would expect from a modern astronomy title, it is packed full of beautiful photos and artists impressions of stars, planets, astronauts and space probes. And, refreshingly, almost all of them are bang up to date, the very latest images available from modern telescopes and space missions as the book was being put together; there are only a few of the “old favourites” that every astronomy book seems to use, such as the artist’s impression of astronauts on Mars on page 185, which was surely painted just after the Big Bang…

The photo quality is excellent throughout, and the layout of the book is very crisp and clean too, though I have a few issues with some of the design choices made. The font used for each section’s title and elsewhere in fact boxes etc is horrible, some weird kind of grunge/graffiti design which doesn’t look “spacey” at all and is visually at odds with the aforementioned “crisp and clean” look of the pages. And there is a lot of black, which I personally think makes it a bit dark in tone as well as visually, and makes it feel a little “cold”. But that’s just a thing for me; I know it makes sense for a space book, what with space actually *being* black and all.

However, I do think that in some places the black is over-used, such as the spread of pages 86-87 which has a beautiful landscape image from the Mars Pathfinder mission spread across it, at the bottom, but there is none of Mars’ beautiful salmon pink/butterscotch-hued sky visible, which looks stunningly beautiful on the original image. Instead the designers have cropped off the sky and just pasted the landscape onto the black page, which might suggest to some readers that the sky on Mars is black…

But really that’s a minor design niggle. The main thing is that the book is, as I said, bang up to date, with gorgeous images taken by the most recent “celebrity” missions such as ROSETTA and  New Horizons, which are covered very fully in the book. This is sometimes at the expense of covering other, older missions with the respect I felt they deserved – the amazing achievements and discoveries of the Mars Exploration Rovers “Spirit” and “Opportunity” are somewhat glossed over – but I understand that there’s only so much room available on a page, and it’s only fair that newer, more recent missions are given the spotlight.

I keep going back to all that black though…. brrrrrrrr.

On the plus side, something I was very glad and relieved to see: there are none of the migraine-inducingly garish and confusing “false colour” 1970s and 80s images of the planets that STILL crop up in astronomy titles today…!

The book’s main strength, I feel, is its text. Reading the book is like listening to a really good presentation by an experienced Outreach speaker, and that for me is one of the signs of a good reference book, whatever the subject. As with all astronomy titles, The Guide isn’t meant to be read from cover to cover; it’s a book to dip into, to learn about a certain planet, mission or field of astronomy when you want or need to. And each section really is like a short illustrated talk by a good Outreach educator. The writing is clear and concise, but not dull and dry, and there’s a natural flow to the writing, with long, conversational paragraphs,  which makes it very easy to read – unlike some astronomy titles, which are written in soundbite sentences like a James Patterson novel, or just coldly list facts and figures that make them read as if they were written by a robot.

Take, for example, this section from the introduction…

That’s really nice isn’t it? Space exploration can seem very cold and inhuman sometimes… all that black, you see…. but images like that show that there’s another side to it, a richer, more romantic side, which many ridicule these days but I think is still very important, especially in such dark times as we find ourselves in now.

So, to go back to the questions I posed at the start of this review – is this book “essential”? No. No astronomy (or science) book is that, not in this internet age when space exploration and the science of astronomy moves so quickly that every book is out of date the moment it is sent off to get printed, and mission websites contain more detail and information than a book ever could, and can be updated within hours of a new discovery being made. What this book is is a very effective snapshot of what we know now, looking back at what we have achieved to date and looking ahead to what we are hoping to do in the future.

And is there enough new and different in it to make it “the perfect gift for Christmas”? Well, that depends who it’s bought for. It’s not suitable for anyone younger than a teenager, I think, unless they are a real “space cadet” kid who has been devouring this stuff for years already. I think it would be a great gift for someone a little older who has just become interested in space exploration and wants to catch up with things, maybe a teenager who has just discovered how fascinating “space” is at school, or an adult who has seen a TV programme about Pluto, or Mars, and who wants to know more. If you know someone like that I would definitely recommend you buy them this book for Christmas if you haven’t sorted them out with a present yet.

It’s a book I would have loved to have been given when I was a teenager.

PHILIP’S “THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO SPACE: ISBN 978-1-84907-419-3

£14.99

Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a comment »

Filed under: Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

This is the time of year when amateur astronomers and stargazers start scanning their local newsagents’ and bookshops’ shelves for the “Sky Guides” for the coming year. When I have them all in my hands (just waiting for The Sky At Night magazine’s guide to appear in Kendal’s WH Smiths) I’ll review them all in one post, but I wanted to give a heads up that the one I found most useful and practical last year is now available: the Astronomy Now 2017 Yearbook, shown above, with a snoring Peggy beside it for scale.

I loved this guide last year because it was very well put together, lavishly illustrated, and the text is written so informally and chattily, with honesty and humour missing from other guides, that reading it was like having an astronomer friend there explaining things to you patiently, at your own pace. I said last year that its simplicity makes this the most useful guide for beginners of all the guides available, and that seems to be the case again this year, although obviously I can’t say that for sure until that Sky At Night guide is out.

The Yearbook follows a familiar format – a chapter for each month, with a sky chart showing the positions of the Moon and planets, plus notes on sights and events on view in the night sky. There are also features on space missions, planets and astronomy.

One special thing this guide has going for it is its charts and illustrations drawn by AN’s artist Greg Smye Rumsby. They are simple and realistic, uncluttered with too many lines, labels and symbols, which means they show what the sky actually looks like when you’re looking out for conjunctions, etc.

So, if you want to know what’s going to be on view “up there” in 2017, now’s the time to get out there and buy yourself a Guide or a Yearbook. Full review to follow when they’re all published.

Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a comment »