Thursday 20 October 2011

Astronomy from the 1950's, and my analogue laptop.

Digging around in a charity shop the other day I found an interesting book titled:

The Modern Children's Library of Knowledge 
Book Two 
The World we live in.



This book was published in 1957, and towards the end of the book was a chapter about astronomy. 

It contained a wealth of astronomy information and most interesting to me a large collection of 1950's era illustrations.

I love these old astronomy pictures. 

Why don't we have more illustrations like these in modern journals and magazines.

Today's astronomy  magazines just don't interest me.

Too many adverts for a start, not enough "amateur" articles, and way too "glossy".

I personally like black and white illustrations, be they photos or drawings. 

Saying that some of the most interesting illustrations can sometimes be in full colour:






In my perfect astronomy magazine I would like nothing more than to see the typesetting done on an ageing typewriter, and all the illustrations courtesy of the 1950's and 60's.

There's a lot of Luddite in me I'm afraid.

Just to prove the point, here's an old  picture of my workshed with typewriter at the ready, or "analogue laptop" as I like to call it.




I realise I'm a bit of a hypocrite as I have computer,but give me a  typewriter, planisphere and a star map any day. 

Also the clock drive on my Tal1 Newtonian is high tech enough for me.

Long live low tech..

Late evening Aurora.

Last night the Aurora Borealis was visible throughout a large portion of the UK. Here in Pembrokeshire it did not disappoint, though in my c...