Scotty’s asteroid citation from Minor Planet Circular 10845

3031 Houston = 1984 CX June 22, 1986

Discovered 1984 February 8 by E. Bowell at Anderson Mesa.

Named in honor of Walter Scott Houston, American amateur astronomer well known for his column Deep-Sky Wonders in the magazine Sky & Telescope. Houston has specialized in the visual study of deep-sky objects and has guided countless amateurs to view and marvel at the varied objects within the grasp of small telescopes. Name proposed by the discoverer following a suggestion by P. L. Dombrowski.

DEEP-SKY WONDERS

Preface

By Stephen James O ’Meara

hen I joined the editorial staff of Sky & Telescope in 1979,1 found myself surrounded by astronomical icons — Charles Federer, Joseph Ashbrook, Leif Robinson, William Shawcross, Kelly Beatty, Dennis di Cicco, Roger Sinnott, and Dennis Milon; all names recognized and respected by the astronomical community.

A phone call away was yet another tier of luminaries who comprised the magazine’s columnists; comet expert John Bortle, sky-lore aficionado George Lovi, and the ever-popular deep-sky wizard Walter Scott Houston, known as Scotty to his friends and Twinky to his correspondents. To work with these people (all pivotal figures in shaping our hobby into the fun and challenging field it is today) meant enjoying a life of constant education; not hard to take. I have enjoyed that privilege now for two decades, and continue to reap the benefits of knowing them and other S&Tstaffers who have since joined the magazine’s ranks.

One highlight of my career occurred in the early 1990s, when Leif Robinson and Dennis di Cicco offered me the task of editing Deep-Sky Wonders, Scotty’s trademark column. I immediately accepted the job and cherished my time working with Scotty until his untimely death in December 1993.1 first met him in the early 1970s at an American Association of Variable Star Observers’ meeting. He was an amateur’s amateur, a man who could grind a mirror as well as he could estimate the magnitude of a cataclysmic variable, expound on the vagaries of atmospheric phenomena, or explain how to see dim details in a galactic nebula. He was also a groundbreaker and a ground shaker. He was generally the first to announce an observing trend and predict its promise or demise. His words reflected his love for the hobby and fueled our imaginations. And his Deep-Sky Wonders column was filled with all this observational magic.

Taking Scotty’s work through our vigorous layers of editing and fact-checking was never a chore, but always an enjoyable learning experience. So why would a collection of Scotty’s writings need further editing? Why not simply slap together a selection of existing columns, rub our hands in satisfaction, and say with a smile, “Well, that was easy!”? There are several reasons. First, Scotty generally divided the sky into 12 monthly strips, each two hours of right ascension wide, running between the north and south celestial poles. During mid-May, for example. for around 10:30 p.m. local time, he would discuss objects found in the strip of sky centered on the meridian between 12 and 14 hours right ascension ... but not always. If he thought readers might be inspired by Orion rising in the east after sunset, instead of waiting for it to transit the meridian, he would toss his editorial framework to the wind and wax poetic about Orion, a move that accentuated his passion for the moment.

Second, Scotty’s columns were structurally complex — a mixture of colorful prose, descriptive history, helpful hints, and observational commentary, in no fixed order. Sometimes the components would be distributed in his columns over months or years. Many times he would wrap up a column on a particular subject by offering a potpourri of additional objects nearby, any one of which might become the focus of future discussion. So he did not always write about, say, deep-sky objects in Cepheus only in November, but also in June. July, September, and December.

Scotty’s writings cover nearly a half century of deep-sky exploration. How does one select the columns that best contain Scotty's writings on a given object or topic? Take the Ring Nebula, for example. In the August 1953 Deep-Sky Wonders Scotty presents some historical information about the Ring, then goes on to tell novice observers how to find it. (That’s important.) In his July 1984 column he details the appearance of the Ring through a variety of instruments and with a range of powers. (That’s also important.) His July 1988 column focuses on the Ring’s central star and its controversial sightings. (Yet another important article.) Other columns on other dates add more observational perspective and historical anecdotes.

So which article about the Ring Nebula is the most important? The fact is that they are all equally useful, for they offer information that is of interest to a wide range of readers. To exclude any one of these columns would be to leave out vital information and data. So the solution, though seemingly daunting, was simple. I decided to go through the nearly half century of Scotty’s writings and begin the familiar process of cutting and pasting.

How did 1 decide which topics to select? First, I reviewed photocopies of the roughly 550 published columns, which were collated into their respective months. Since Scotty discussed many of the same objects over the years, it was not difficult to select about a half dozen features as representative samples for each month. I used each feature as a foundation, into which I incorporated sentences, paragraphs, and sections from other columns on the same topic. This second tier of the editing process was performed in three stages.

First I made keyword searches through each published column and created a background database for each feature. Next 1 reviewed the background text and weeded out repetitive sections. The challenge was to cut and paste passages so that they preserved Scotty’s original sentence structures, but also flowed naturally. It was important that the “feel” of the work remained Scotty’s. As an example of this cut-and-paste process, consider the following sentences, which come from three separate Deep-Sky Wonders columns about the Ring Nebula:

August 1953: It seems to have been discovered by Darquier in 1779, and he and Messier saw it in their imperfect instruments as a pale planetary disk. By Herschel's lime its "smoke-ring" form was known and justly admired.

August 1976: It was discovered by the French astronomer Antoine Darquier in 1779 while comet hunting with a 3-inch refractor. He described it as "a very dull nebula, but perfectly outlined; as large as Jupiter and looks like a fading planet.”

August 1980: It was discovered by the French amateur Antoine Darquier in 1779. who described it as about the size of Jupiter, but dim and looking like a "faded planet." William Herschel thought it to be a ring of stars just beyond the resolution of his telescopes. His son John first called attention to the fainter nebulosity which fills the interior of the ring, likening it to gauze stretched over a hoop.

Notice that though the above passages are very similar, they differ in the amount of detail Scotty revealed about Darquier’s discovery. After gleaning the vital information from each of these passages, I created the following final version:

It was discovered by the French astronomer Antoine Darquier in 1779 while comet hunting with a 3-inch refractor. He described it as “a very dull nebula, but perfectly outlined; as large as Jupiter and looking like a fading planet. ” By Herschel's time its “smoke-ring” form was known and justly admired. William Herschel thought it to be a ring of stars just beyond the resolution of his telescopes. His son John first called attention to the fainter nebulosity which fills the interior of the ring, likening it to gauze stretched over a hoop.

Although few of the essays in this book will duplicate any single Deep-Sky Wonders column, 99 percent of the words in this book are Scotty’s. They begin in classic Scotty fashion, with an eloquent and colorful description of the season or the month, or perhaps some topic of astronomy that happens to be on his mind. He then launches into an informative discussion of a particular object of interest.

The text follows a general pattern; namely, it first presents any historical information, followed by Scotty’s advice on how to find the object with the naked eye or binoculars, then the object’s appearance through small to large telescopes, and finally a wrap-up discussion including observing mysteries and challenges. I have not replaced any of his sentences with my own. I did not add any sentences or thoughts. Occasionally I needed to add a word or a phrase for a smooth transition. To make Scotty’s references to books and people appear in a logical fashion in each chapter, we spell out a book or person’s full name if it is the first reference, and let subsequent references remain as Scotty originally wrote them. Where something might seem ambiguous or obscure, footnotes have been added to clarify the material for the reader.

Occasionally Scotty referred observers to a star chart that is now out of print, such as the Skalnatc Pleso Atlas of the Heavens. At other times, Scotty used a work's earlier edition, such as Norton’s Star Atlas. I did not alter Scotty’s words to reflect the existence of newer atlases. Scotty was not alive when, say, the Millennium Star Atlas came out, so replacing the Atlas of the Heavens with it would be anachronistic. But Scotty was aware of the original Sky Atlas 2000.0, Uranometria 2000.0, and the Deep-Sky Field Guide, and these atlases do appear here by name.

All chapters and sections open with a brief introduction in which I set the tone for what follows. The chapters all end with tables of objects that Scotty discussed and are meant to guide the reader who wants to go out and take up Scotty’s observing challenges. The book concludes with a bibliography, a list by chapter of the issues of Sky & Telescope in which the original text appeared, and an index.

That Scotty’s columns span several decades also means they include variations in nomenclature and editorial style. For example, in the 1950s, Scotty might write, “the great nebula in Andromeda,” while in the 1980s he would write “the Great Galaxy in Andromeda”; so the text has been edited for consistency of style. The sizes, magnitudes, dimensions, and distances of deep-sky objects also show marked variation over the years. For consistency (and accuracy), I selected the most recent data used by Scotty in his columns.

It is important to remember that this book is not a field guide but a collection of works by a man who kept his hand on the pulse of amateur astronomy as it underwent sometimes dramatic revolutions of thought.

This anthology of Scotty’s writings is intended to encapsulate the man's vast knowledge of the night sky, which he accumulated during a long and fruitful career as a writer and an observer. It captures the full spirit of Scotty. He was a man who did not fear going against the grain of traditional thinking. He often “questioned authority;” at times his words were quixotic, especially when he encouraged us to pursue those elusive windmills of the deep sky — dim galaxies al the limit of vision, painfully faint stars, and phantom nebulae. If there was a visual challenge, he was willing to face it. That flavor and style is embodied in this book. And Scotty was not all talk. He was a good listener and a generous supporter of amateur claims; he would at least give us the benefit of the doubt. He aimed to define, and redefine, the limits of observing and thus the everchanging truth, and so he supported us and our views in his column. And that is how deep-sky observing progressed, in fits and starts, in Scotty’s verbal arena.

Working on this book, I found myself growing even fonder of this man who gave so much to the amateur astronomical community. His words instilled in us a feeling of dignity and hope. “So it’s with a great sense of pride,” Scotty said, “that we, as amateurs, go outside and enjoy the night sky.”

Acknowledgements

No anthology is the work of a sole author and editor, and this one is no excep-ion At least a dozen people formed the “Scotty Production Team," and the project couldn't have been done without them.

Sky & Telescope associate editor Dennis di Cicco worked with Scotty for nearly 20 years. Most of the original editing of the columns, then, was done by him. A world-renowned imager of the night sky, Dennis also supplied several deep-sky shots and photographs of Scotty. He also authored and updated the Scotty retrospective on page xv, first published in Sky & Telescope to celebrate the occasion of Scotty's 75th birthday.

spondent, Brian A. Skiff of Lowell Observatory, graciously agreed to write the book's introduction.

Canadian amateur astronomer James Lucyk, an avid Deep-Sky Wonders reader, keyboarded in all the Scotty columns as a labor of love. Sky Publishing’s special projects assistant E. Talmadge Mentall compiled the tables and lists of sources and painstakingly checked all of the measurements, figures, and citations.

Sky Publishing’s image archivist Imclda B. Joson did daily penance in the “image crypt," finding just the right images to illustrate Scotty’s work. Assisting her in this task was Jacqueline S. Mitchell. Craig Michael Utter’s expertise in digital imaging was essential in preparing the book’s many photographs. Associate editor and acclaimed atlas wizard Roger W. Sinnott carved away valuable time from his Sky & Telescope editorial tasks to create three charts especially for the book.

Our proofreaders were John Woodruff, who also supplied some hard-to-find references and background information, and Nina Barron who checked the book’s front and back matter. John Woodruff also created the index.

Publications manager Sally MacGillivray got the right printer lined up and coordinated all the production details. Designer Lynn Sternbergh created the elegant look and feel of the text and jacket.

Richard Tresch Fienberg, president and publisher of Sky Publishing Corporation, recognized that Deep-Sky Wonders is an astronomical treasure and gave me the opportunity and honor to work on putting Scotty’s words together.

Carolyn Collins Petersen, Sky’s books and products editor, has been my editor, guardian angel, and sounding board throughout the project.

Finally, Miriam and Margaret Houston patiently supported and awaited the publication of this book. In lieu of a dedication. I’m sure Scotty would have said that he loved and cherished you both.

DEEP-SKY WONDERS

Blue Postcards from Twinky

By Brian A. Skiff

In my letters file is a treasured folder with notes from Walter Scott Houston.

Our correspondence ran from 1979 through 1990, after which we saw each other often enough to keep up. Usually Scotty’s responses came in the form of blue postcards featuring a pot-bellied cartoon stargazer on the front.

As often as not the reverse contained a compressed, personal Deep-Sky Wonders column signed “Twinky.” Since I have ready access to the true dark skies of Arizona, Scotty often wrote me to ask about the visibility of objects at the "edge,” and occasionally the results would be distilled into a few lines of a column many months later. On one occasion, with sky-suppressing nebula filters newly available, we surprised each other by reporting — in notes that crossed in the mail — the naked-eye visibility of the California Nebula using them. It was typical of his exploration to examine what was possible to observe without extraordinary means, and of my being inspired by his words to push the envelope.

In reading through these chapters, it’s clear to me that Scotty was well ahead of the curve in challenging observers to see as much as they could.Within these pages, we find accounts of attempts to view not only well-known objects, such as the Horsehead and Veil nebulae, but also such low-surface-brightness denizens as Barnard’s Loop, the Sculptor dwarf galaxy, the “nonexistent” NGC open clusters, and objects that were simply off the beaten track. Who else could direct observers with such ease to a faint clump of IC galaxies near Castor or to a string of overlooked objects in the southern constellation Grus?

The column was driven largely by the responses of readers, whose results Scotty quoted with abandon in order to first follow up on objects and techniques already discussed and then to steer the discussion in new directions.Thus we read of observations by folks now well known in the field, including John Bortle, Brenda Branchett, Steve Gottlieb, Phil Harrington. David Riddle, and Barbara Wilson. The column was often a “moderated newsgroup” for active observers, focused through Scotty’s keen eye for where the vanguard was going.

Scotty’s articles ranged far and wide over the whole subject of visual astronomical observation. His topics included the idiosyncracies of data in catalogs and the psychological effects of such unpredictability on an observer’s attempts to see a supposedly tough object; the seasonal changes in weather; seeing and transparency; aperture and magnification in the telescope; the great observers of the 19th century; and the effect on viewing planetary nebulae after the lens in Scotty’s own cataract-clouded eye was replaced with a UV-transparent lens implant.

Scotty had a light touch and avoided being distracted by technical details. You don’t find any invidious comparisons of different telescope or eyepiece brands in his writing or much about the nitty-gritty of equipment at all, because Scotty knew that the most important piece of equipment was the eye, and its training the most important activity; all else was trivia) in comparison. Time wasted arguing the virtues of one eyepiece over another was time not spent honing your observing skills. Similarly the articles are quietly but solidly grounded in the up-to-date research of the time. Although it is clear that he did his homework to prepare each column by looking up details in professional journals and catalogs, we get only the gist of it — he was not out to impress you with his library.

Beyond any specific targets, Scotty saw his job as being the person to cajole, coerce, and otherwise inspire others to go out and observe, no matter what the target.

David Levy tells the story of meeting Scotty at a Deep-Sky Wonder Night in northern Vermont in late August 1966. He had just begun comet hunting some months earlier. In the middle of the night, David took a break and began telling Scotty of his hopes to discover a comet someday. Puffing slowly on his pipe, Scotty asked David what the sky was like outside. He answered that it was pretty clear, dark, and moonless. Scotty then asked if David’s telescope was out there, to which the answer was “yes." Scotty took another puff on his pipe, looked up quizzically and said, “Well, David, you sure aren’t going to find a comet as long as we're inside talking about it!”

That encounter gave David the dedication to persevere until he’d bagged his first comet. Despite his tenure behind the eyepiece, Scotty never managed to spy a comet of his own. But in 1986, at the suggestion of amateur Phil Dombrowski, Lowell Observatory astronomer Ted Bowell named an asteroid — 3031 Houston — in Scotty’s honor. Readers will recognize that this asteroid number is the same as the NGC number of one of the brightest handful of galaxies in the sky, M81 — a coincidence not lost on Scotty. In a letter to Bowell, he wrote that he had given a theme talk at Stellafane on the occasion of an asteroid being presented to the meteorite expert Oscar Monnig [2780 Monnig]. “At the time I fantasized about getting one myself, but gave up the idea as an impossible job. Now look how bright the Sun shines.”

Like many of the devoted followers of the column and readers of this collection, I became a deep-sky observer 30 years ago because of Scotty Houston. The next generation will find here the reasons why far bigger telescopes, more sophisticated sky-charting software, and other modern accouterments aren't the most important things in the hobby. Sit and read one of the masters, and then put the book down and go look at the sky!

Portrait of an Icon

By Dennis di Cicco

The wonderful areas of Cygnus are overhead.

Sweep along the Milky Way with binoculars or a rich-field telescope ... The dark nebulae are plainly visible.

Anyone familiar with Walter Scott Houston’s writing would not be the least bit surprised to learn that the quote above came from his monthly Deep-Sky Wonders column in Sky & Telescope. What might be surprising to contemporary readers, however, would be the date — September 1946 — since this was well before many of them were born, if we are to believe the magazine’s demographic surveys. The quote is from Houston's first "column," which was a mere 12 sentences long and served mainly as a caption to a one-page, black-and-white star chart. During the ensuing decades Deep-Sky Wonders grew in size and reputation and became one of the most widely read and enjoyed sections of Sky & Telescope. When Houston succumbed after a brief illness while traveling in Mexico just before Christmas 1993, he was riding a seemingly perpetual wave of popularity that crested in the mid-1980s and accompanied the large-aperture Dobsonian telescope revolution. He had been a continuous contributor to the magazine for more than 47 years, a record that still stands.

On May 30,1987, Houston celebrated his 75th birthday. The milestone served as an excuse to profile one of the magazine’s most-recognized personalities. At the time.Twinky, as he was known to many friends and correspondents, was still an avid skywatcher with a special interest in variable stars and, of course, deepsky objects. (His nickname, by the way, which was prominently displayed on the license plate of his automobile, was conferred upon him by his three daughters for nonastronomical reasons.)

Born in Tippecanoe, Wisconsin, in 1912, Scotty (another of his countless aliases that include names like Three-Toed Pete and Hu) acquired an interest in optics as a preteenager when he read about the subject in a physics book. His first telescope was a 1-inch 40x refractor made from scavenged lenses and a paper-and-paste tube. He transformed other lenses into an 80x compound microscope, and, until he headed off to college, Scotty knew far more about microscopes than telescopes.

In 1930 he ground a 6-inch telescope mirror that was a failure.The 10-inch that tollowed, however, gave excellent images. Made from thin plate glass, the mirror is now on display in the R. W. Porter Museum of Amateur Telescope Making, located in the underground chambers of Hartness House in Springfield, Vermont.

While attending the University of Wisconsin, Scotty met Joseph Meek, who encouraged him to begin observing variable stars. He joined the American Association of Variable Star Observers in 1931 and ultimately submitted more than 12,500 observations. He always maintained a major interest in variables.

With degrees in English, Scotty taught at universities and public schools in Wisconsin, Alabama, Ohio, Kansas, Missouri, and Connecticut. During World War II he was an instructor of advanced pilots at the Army-Air Force’s Navigation School at Selman Field in Monroe. Louisiana. In I960 he moved to Connecticut and became an editor for American Education Publications, where he worked until his retirement in 1974.

Scotty was an avid traveler. Many times he and his wife, Miriam, took to the highways of the United States and Central America pulling a small trailer behind their automobile. On many occasions the copy for his monthly column arrived in an envelope with the return address simply rubber-stamped, “Walter Scott Houston on the Road."The postmarks were from Wisconsin, the American Southwest, and Mexico.There was usually a small note attached to the copy that apologized for the condition of the manuscript due to this or that key sticking on his portable typewriter.

Scotty was particularly active in Kansas during the late 1950s. Along with Cliff Simpson, he used various radio techniques to monitor meteor activity, record the passage of artificial satellites, and map the sky at 108 MHz. These experiments later led him to an interest in detecting solar flares with a sudden-atmospheric-cnhancement (SAE) recorder. He identified his first meteorite while in Kansas, and went on to locate at least a dozen more.

In cooperation with the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, Scotty established a Moonwatch station in his backyard near Manhattan, Kansas. In early 1958 it was the first station to catch sight of Explorer 1, the United States’ first satellite.

During his Kansas years Scotty was editor of the freewheeling amateur newsletter The Great Plains Observer, which had more than a thousand subscribers. Typical of its style was the opening line from a story chronicling hurried plans to observe a satellite. It read, “Manhattan Moonwatch got caught with its rompers well down around the varicose veins.”

Although it was but a small part of his wide-ranging astronomical activities, the Deep-Sky Wonders column gave Scotty his greatest public exposure. He did much of his early observing with a 10-inch scope under the clear, dark Kansas skies. Those observations were often recounted in his columns. Deep-Sky Wonders evolved from little more than a stark listing of the brightest objects visible during a given month to a free-flowing journal that was alive with Scotty’s own observing experiences as well as those of others who wrote to him. These were mixed with observing tips, asides on double or variable stars, and a dash of constellation lore.

It was at the annual Stellafane gathering of telescope makers outside Springfield, Vermont, that Scotty seemed most in his element. Surrounded by hundreds of friends and admirers, he continually found someone stopping to greet him or ask an observing question.

Tlic appellation “raconteur" was well suited to Scotty, as he was never hesitant to launch into a story. Some listeners would raise an eyebrow as the tale unfolded. But if anyone questioned the reality of the story, Scotty would likely reply with a broad grin and a mischievous twinkle in his eye. Some interpreted this as “listener beware," but it was not always clear if that meant “beware if you do believe it" or -beware if you don't." As a case in point, in 1959 he wrote an April Fools’ story about the two moons of Mars being artificial satellites. It became more than a passing curiosity when a Russian scientist put forth the same "theory" soon after.

Scotty remained forever active. In early 1986 I received a note on one of his famous blue postcards that was signed “Deerslayer." When I inquired about the new nickname, I learned that Scotty, then 74, had collided with a deer at 3:30 a.m. while on the way to show a group of schoolchildren Halley’s Comet. Neither the deer nor his automobile survived, but he did keep his appointment.

In the summer of 1980 he underwent cataract surgery. Although some might consider this unlucky for a person who spent much of his life looking at the sky, for Scotty it opened up a new world of observing. With the eye’s lens removed, a flood of ultraviolet light could reach his retina, and some faint blue stars, like the central star in the Ring Nebula, appeared brighter to him in small telescopes.

In 1986 he had a hip-replacement operation, and at that year’s Stellafane, supported by crutches, he delivered his annual “Shadowgram” talk to an enthusiastic crowd, which had just been told that asteroid 3031 was named Houston in his honor. In response to a standing ovation he waved the crutches high in the air as if the applause alone had cured him.

My first encounter with Scotty, albeit an indirect one, was in the early 1960s. I had already explored the Moon and Jupiter and "discovered" the rings of Saturn with a 60-mm refractor when I came across his column in a library copy of Sky & Telescope. “A glory of the northern sky is M13," he had written. One look at this cluster and 1 was hooked on deep-sky observing. Little did I know then that some dozen years later I would become Scotty’s editor. I always saved his copy so it would be the last thing I’d work on each month — it was my editorial "dessert." and I savored every word of it as much as I savored our working relationship. We were friends as well as colleagues, and we were always on the lookout for ways to amuse ourselves at each other's expense. Unable to locate Tippecanoe on a Wisconsin map, I dropped him a tongue-in-cheek note asking if he really knew where he was born. Return mail brought a photocopy of a map with the Milwaukee suburb indicated with a deliberately suspicious-looking handmade label, leaving me more in doubt than ever.

In February 1987 I visited him at his Connecticut home. The intent was an interview, but we both knew beforehand that the conventional question-and-answer session would never work — it would be too easy for us to drift from the topic at hand. As we sat in the den that served as his office, the noontime sun streamed through a south-facing window and illuminated the clouds of smoke that billowed from his pipe — one of his many trademarks.

In his backyard, surrounded by the snow of an unusually hard winter, was his latest astronomical project: a new observatory. He had completed much of its cement-block foundation soon after his hip operation.The walls had been hastily covered for winter. Nevertheless, a temporary roof with hinged panels ensured that observing would continue.

The following “interview” was pieced together from our shared afternoon. It gives some insight into one of the 20th century’s best-known astronomical writers.

S&T: How did you get your start in deep-sky observing?

Scotty: Through writing the column. At first the writing was easy since I had viewed all the Messier objects when I was in the 6th grade, and the early copy was mainly about bright objects. The column first appeared in November 1942, and was done by Leland Copeland when I took it over in 1946.1 didn’t want to write about anything I hadn’t seen myself, so as the column grew to include fainter objects, I would go out in the early morning sky to look at things I would be writing about for evening observers later in the year.

In those days there weren't many observing guides. There was Norton's Star Atlas, which was utterly useless for any instrument larger than a pair of binoculars. I had access to a library copy of Admiral Smyth’s The Bedford Catalogue and Reverend Webb’s observing handbook. They were good for reference and for making sure I didn’t overlook any bright object.

Of course in those days there was no one to argue with me, since readers didn’t know any more than I did. Today it’s a different story. There are a lot of people who know more than me, especially about specific types of objects. There are people who specialize in planetaries or diffuse nebulae. As better catalogs come along, we have observers who will go after unusual objects. With the recent publication of Vehrenberg’s Atlas of Galactic Nebulae, I suspect we will find people looking at many of these objects, especially the ones that haven’t made it onto popular star charts in the past.

S&T: Do observers in general seem more skilled today?

Scotty: Oh my, yes. Years ago I would bait the column with some difficult observation, like the dark lanes in M13. There would rarely be a reply, so I would wait a few more years and try again. Lately, I get responses to even the most difficult observations. And it’s not due just to the large-aperture telescopes in the hands of amateurs today. Many of the current sightings come from people using 12-inch and smaller instruments. While they weren’t as common a decade or two ago, there were still plenty of large scopes being used by amateurs.

Certainly some of the credit can be given to modern light-pollution filters. They have been the basis for some wonderful observations, but some of the results must also be due to a positive attitude on the part of the observer. Before, people were too willing to assume that a particular object was beyond the reach of their telescopes without really trying to look for it.

I get a lot of pleasure in throwing plugs out into the stream and seeing who will pick them up. Often something interesting will come of it. I have no interest in making a discovery myself, except perhaps to find a supernova in our own Milky Way galaxy.

S&T: Interesting you should say that on the heels of the discovery of the supernova in the Large Magellanic Cloud. Have you ever had a good look at the southern sky?

Scotty- The farthest south I’ve been is about 15° north latitude. I've never been far enough to see the Magellanic Clouds, but I have seen the Coalsack and much of the bright southern Milky Way. I was completely unimpressed by the Southern Cross. I do like the bright stars Alpha and Beta Centauri to tlie east of it. however. The Eta Carinae Nebula is an easy naked-eye object, even when low on the horizon. The first time I saw it I thought it was a cloud.

S&T: What do you think the future holds for deep-sky observers?

Scotty: I don't really know. Every time 1 think I know the answer, something different happens. It’s one of the pleasures of astronomy — you can’t always predict the future, and so much has happened in the past few years.

Take astrophotography. Every now and then some knowledgeable person comes along and says amateur astrophotography is dead: it has progressed as far as it can. The next thing you know there’s a new film or hypersensitizing technique, and amateurs are taking the best pictures ever.

Every so often someone proclaims the death of amateur telescope making. Who would have thought the Dobsonian revolution would have caught on the way it did? There are probably more people building scopes now than ever before.

No, I don’t think I’d like to try to predict what the next stage of deep-sky observing will be.

      JANUARY.html
      FEBRUARY.html
      MARCH.html
      APRIL.html
      MAY.html
      JUNE.html
      JULY.html
      AUGUST.html
      SEPTEMBER.html
      OCTOBER.html
      NOVEMBER.html
      DECEMBER.html