I'm a subscriber to Australian Sky and Telescope, and like others mentioned, I like to local content. Not all issues are for me, but the majority are.
I like the local advertisements, these are good to read thru to keep up to date [not to mention they fund the magazine].
I very much like the S French section, the various latest astronomical news, gallery, and the last page readers article.
But Greg, if you are still monitoring this thread, the one thing missing is an astrophotography section for "What's up this month". There are plenty of sections for the visual observer and the planetary imager, but little targeted directly for the astrophotographer. You may argue against this that the current sections are adequate, but these provide only occasional assistance to me for what's up next/now. I also believe that astrophotography must be one of the largest growing areas in astronomy today, so securing this markets interest by having a specific section providing a "What's up" section would increase demand for the AS&T.
The new category could be broken up into three sections, 1st a DSLR wide field section for panorama possibilities. This could be expanded to assist the new field of readers emerging in achieving great sky animations like those done by Alex Cherney. Not advice on how to do the animations, but advice on assisting readers on planning their session for this month.
The next sections could be easier, for 500mm to 1000mm focal lengths, and the last for 1800mm to 2500mm. It may be argued that for each focal length, you may derive a very different field of view from the CCD used, but a line needs to be drawn somewhere on how to designate the sections of advice.
I think one of the hardest things to do, especially for the new comer, is to identify what to capture next. Those who do not have support in the form of a club or forum, may find they lose interest quickly as they cannot find the next interesting object to capture. AS&T could fulfil this void, making these next interesting objects a simple thing to plan for.
I wouldn't recommend obscure objects with little colour or without nebulosity, as most people are interested in a "Wow" result rather than a scientific purpose. It may even be advice in the form of a list/matrix. I have even made a simple reminder list in Excel for myself using auto-filters. Here you can select the month of interest, and even target objects for a certain focal lengths. I've attached mine just as a hint. This list is a little old now, as I use CCDAP for future sessions.
People can plan their own framing, but AS&T could even advise on this too for particular objects. It may be that AS&T reminds readers to not miss important objects surrounding the main object in the field, and that they try to include these too [depending on their FOV].
Anyway, just my 20cents. I very much like my AS&T.
Steve
