Archives

Harold Knox-Shaw worked at the Helwan Observatory, Egypt, from 1907 to 1924. The Observatory was equipped with a 30-inch (76 cm) reflector that was financed and constructed by the Birmingham industrialist, John Reynolds (1874-1949), to benefit from the clearer skies and more southerly latitude compared with Britain.

NEMETODE, a network of low-light video cameras in Cheshire and West Yorkshire operated by members of the BAA Meteor Section, monitors the activity of meteor showers, enabling the precision measurement of radiant positions and, from the best quality data, the altitudes and geocentric velocities of meteors and their solar system orbits. The results from dual-station observations of the 2013 eta Aquarid shower are presented and discussed.

This report is the first of a new series that will describe and analyse observations of the brighter or more interesting comets discovered or at perihelion during the year.

A brief history of the Hansen hypothesis, its effect on the literary imagination, and a short account of some pre-Lunik conjectures about the physiography of the Moon’s far side.

The Revd Walter Bidlake was vicar of Crewe in Cheshire for some 21 years at the start of the 20th century. He was a keen amateur astronomer with an interest in celestial photography, and took photographs of the night sky in support of T. H. E. C. Espin’s search for dark nebulae in the Milky Way. This paper describes Bidlake’s astronomical activities and life, including a high profile libel case he brought.

In her 2014 Presidential Address, Hazel McGee describes the story of the Journal of the BAA, and introduces some of the editors who have guided the publication through its first 124 years.

Jonathan Shanklin reviews the comets of 2002.

Ron Arbour presents a novel technique he has developed for cleaning the front of Schmidt-Cassegrain telescopes.