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‘Reggie’ Waterfield was the BAA’s 33rd president and its most prolific comet photographer from the 1930s to the 1980s. He was also an eclipse chaser and a leading haematologist. Part I covers Reggie’s earliest years, the three years he spent abroad in Baltimore, his gruelling eclipse expeditions and his friendships with W. H. Steavenson and others.

Using personal white-light disc drawings of the Sun, it is assessed that some 8% of all sunspot groups observed during the 10 years from 2009 to 2018 have not been assigned an NOAA active region number. This paper examines these groups to try to identify why this might be the case.

In Part II we describe the usual seasonal meteorological indicators such as the Tharsis orographic clouds and the Equatorial Cloud Band (ECB). The ECB was observed to be complete during Ls = 051 to 145° and observations of the Syrtis Blue Cloud were frequently made. In 2014 the N. polar spiral clouds at the edge of the summer cap were particularly well observed from Ls = 117°. Their morphology was observed to change with time, and those clouds over Baltia occurred seasonally earlier than similar features over Utopia. The transition from N. polar cap to hood occurred during Ls = 153 to 162°. The early stages of the recession of the N. polar cap occurred too close to solar conjunction to be well observed, but the later stages were followed quantitatively and the data compared with previous years.

The Gaia space observatory provides parallax values for stars, allowing us to determine their distances. Young star clusters are located close to the galactic plane where their formation took place. The distances of fifty young clusters have been computed, allowing us to see how they are distributed in the Milky Way galaxy. This distribution provides us with evidence of the shapes and distances of the spiral arms in which they were formed.

In this study we examine a lunar dome, termed Laplace 1 (L1), identified using telescopic, LROC WAC and Chandrayaan-1 Moon Mineralogy Mapper imagery; Mineral Mapper reflectance data acquired by the JAXA probe SELENE/Kaguya; the LOLA digital elevation model and the LROC WAC-based GLD100 digital terrain model. The dome lies at coordinates 48.57°N and 26.37°W, about 36km south-east of the crater Maupertuis. It has a base diameter of 7.6 ± 0.3km and a maximum height of 230 ± 20m, resulting in a slope angle of 3.4 ± 0.3°. Spectral data indicate a basaltic composition. We assess the regional geology and infer the physical conditions under which the dome originated. L1 is not reported in lunar dome catalogues; hence our study demonstrates that high-resolution CCD imagery is useful for the recognition of non-catalogued domes. The main goal of this paper is to promote serious lunar research among dedicated amateur astronomers.

David Sinden, an amateur astronomer and former member of the BAA, was the last in a line of opticians that can be traced back to Thomas Grubb. For many years he was chief optician at Sir Howard Grubb, Parsons and Company where he worked on optics for some of the world’s largest telescopes made at the time. He went on to establish his own business, the Sinden Optical Company, before his untimely death in 2005. He was a highly respected and skilled optician whose achievements were considerable. Many of his optics are still in daily use in observatories around the world.

During this aphelic opposition we received over 6,000 observations from 102 contributors. Small-scale dust activity was evident in the north polar region on several occasions, some events coinciding with the seasonal detachment of Olympia. Later dust activity in the region was associated with the development of the polar hood. At Ls = 154° a Regional storm commenced in Libya–Isidis Regio. The most frequently active site until the 1960s, it remained almost completely inactive – at telescopic resolution – for years. This event occurred seasonally early, but a second Regional event that simultaneously broke out there and in Hellas at Ls = 216° in 2014 October showed typical timing: dust spread west across Noachis and led to a darkening of Pandorae Fretum, as well as a broadening of Mare Serpentis. Short-lived local equatorial storms were recorded over Valles Marineris and Chryse–Xanthe. The entire Ls period over which planet-encircling storms are known to emerge was checked…

In 2018 July the authors visited the Lowell Observatory for five nights, primarily to make observations of Mars and Saturn. In this paper we give a short introduction to the history of the observatory and present observations of these two planets, made using the 24-inch Clark refractor.

In this report, observations of the brighter or more interesting comets at perihelion during 2017 are described and analysed, concentrating on those visually observed. Magnitude parameters are given for all comets with observations. Any evolution in the magnitude parameters of those periodic comets with multiple returns is discussed. Additional information on the comets discussed here, and on other comets seen or at perihelion during the year, may be found on the Section visual observations web pages.

This paper compares the BAA white-light measurements made during Solar Cycle 24. The main purpose is to assess whether there are any differences in the recorded long-term characteristics of solar activity for observers who determine the number of groups, the sunspot number and/or the BAA quality number (based on type of group). A comparison is also performed between the International Sunspot Number and the BAA sunspot number.