THE ASTRONOMER Electronic Circular No 702       1993 Jan 17 13.13UT
Ed:Guy M Hurst, 16,Westminster Close, Kempshott Rise,  Basingstoke,
Hants, RG22 4PP,England. Telephone/FAX(0256)471074 Int:+44256471074
TELEX: 9312111261 Answerback: TA G      TELECOM GOLD: 10074:MIK2885
GMH at UK.AC.RUTHERFORD.STARLINK.ASTROPHYSICS  STARLINK: RLSAC::GMH
GMH at UK.AC.CAM.ASTRONOMY.STARLINK            STARLINK: CAVAD::GMH
-------------------------------------------------------------------
TA PRODUCTION
Despite the appeals in The Astronomer no-one had come forward to
offer assistance by the magazine deadline for the January issue.
Mark Hurst has kindly agreed to cover the despatch work for the
time being.
We have now also consulted with various commercial printers for
quotations, most of which were nearly double the amount at present
being paid. However one firm in Basingstoke has agreed to print
the inside pages of the magazine at a similar price to our present
commitment. They also offer us the option of retaining A4 printing
with stapling down the edges or printing on A3 ( two A4 pages
at once) with stapling down the spine.
With regard to the covers the Basingstoke Company have just
acquired a new sophisticated photocopying machine with a 'photo-
mode' option and could also take over printing the covers on this
basis at a cost also similar to our present commitment. At present
we are dealing with two different firms and in two locations i.e.
printing of pages in London and covers in Northampton. This present
arrangement has led to delays which are unacceptable to the Editor
and the readership in general.
Thus our new firm could take on the whole production process and
could auto-collate and staple all in one process leaving our
Production Manager to merely fix address labels, place magazines
in envelopes, stamp and despatch - about two nights work.
We would plan to revert to a despatch date of 20th instead of
2-3 weeks later which has occurred in recent months.
It would also enable the cover deadline to be advanced to the
same as the observations i.e 5th of month of issue, and perhaps
where an important new object appeared nearer to the issue date,
by special arrangement an up-to-the minute photograph could be
inserted.
The only aspect which gives cause for concern is the quality of
reproduction of photographs on the cover by the new process.
Samples have been obtained from originals of the 1992 December
issue. The 'photo-mode' of the photocopier appears to handle
faint star images extremely well. In the photograph by Herman
Mikuz of Nova Cygni all the stars on the original print are
re-produced in the photocopied version. The treatment of Messier
20 (back cover) is also good with the dark lanes of the nebula
clearly visible and the stars embedded in the nebulosity.
Against this the front cover photograph has been printed with
four varying contrast levels under the test. The stars again
re-produce well but the comet's coma is generally larger than
the original cover (printed from plates). The effect seems to
be that some faint stars near the coma, visible on the original,
are masked out and there is not a gradual change from dense white
coma to grey outer regions but rather a 'sharply defined white
ball'.
Our situation is that the next cover deadline for February is
January 20 (3 days time) if we continue with the Northampton
firm. We would welcome our magazine subscriber thoughts via
e-mail on all the above aspects before then,

Guy M Hurst