Hi Dave!
Thanks for dropping by and signing up! It was great to meet you at Erina the other week, I wish the Central Coast had more astronomy talks like that, there really seems to be a lack of anything astronomy related on the central coast.. Not even any amateur clubs that I could fine, I either had to join one in Sydney or Newcastle.
I guess it's talks like that, that can bring people interested in astronomy together, and when people are together like that, that's when small groups might get formed, people might start observing together, and it all starts from there
I've said it before, but the mag (Sky&Space) is looking really really good right now, lots of great content and covers material for both the casual interest in space and astronomy, to the amateur astronomers who read it for the equipment reviews and more technical articles and how-to's.
I think you'll need to preserve that balance too - as an amateur astronomer of course i'd love to see more technical how-to articles, DIY articles for telescope building or mods to already bought telescopes, observing chairs, more on astrophotography (the recent articles on astrophotography were
great), how to use hartman masks, post-processing of images, etc. I also like Brad's idea about practical astronomy, though i'm sure it'd go over the head of most of us
The equipment reviews are a must-have as well, the eyepiece reviews in the last 2 articles were fantastic, and even more so because it was also a price-comparison and not just the view. Something that was missing from the Orion SVP review was price!! What range of prices can you buy it for in both australian shops and frmo overseas?
But as I said, you can't get too technical or you'll lose the casual reader, the one who buys it because they're interested in space news, or learning the technical jargon, or have a slight interest in observing and are starting to get into it more.. if you go too technical, you're only aiming at a small part of the market and might lose readers.
Oh and more readers' pictures too, there seemed to be a few less in the Nov/Dec edition than in previous ones..
Anyway thanks again for the support of this site, hopefully with interest and contributions from experts like yourself, we'll see this site really grow and become a fantastic community and resource for amateur astronomers and people interest in getting into stargazing as a hobby.
I'm heading to Port McQuarie over the xmas holidays for a week, and plan on going to the observatory there.. will you be in town?