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THE ASTRONOMER Electronic Circular No 1241      1997 Oct 19 15.06UT
Ed:Guy M Hurst, 16,Westminster Close, Kempshott Rise,  Basingstoke,
Hants, RG22 4PP,England.Telephone/FAX(01256)471074Int:+441256471074
INTERNET: GUY@TAHQ.DEMON.CO.UK             GMH at AST.STAR.RL.AC.UK
WORLD WIDE WEB                    http://www.demon.co.uk/astronomer
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V1147 CYGNI
Chris Lloyd, Rutherford e-mails: I am trying to organise a short
observing campaign on the 11th magnitude eclipsing binary V1147
Cyg, which lies close to Chi Cygni. Recent CCD observations show an
eclipse of 0.7 mag, lasting about 5 hours. The star is normally at
V ~ 11.5. Several estimates of the period have been published but
they are all wrong. What we need are some visual observers, who can
reach at least V = 12, and who might be interested in looking at
this star for perhaps a month or so. The observers need to be
distributed around the globe to obtain maximum coverage. Observers
on the Pacific rim and Hawaii would be particularly valuable. If
any eclipsing binary observers are interested you can find further
details, finding charts etc., on my web page
http://astro1.bnsc.rl.ac.uk/cl/www/RandomVariable.html

TA 1997 AGM VIDEO (NEW!)
This four hour video in PAL format is now available and costs
L12.00 post paid to UK addresses. For other European addresses
add 30% to cover postage and packing. For Rest of the World please
ask for a quotation.
Orders should now be sent to Peter Meadows, TA Secretary, rather
than the Editor as hitherto. Peter's address is:
6 Chelmerton Avenue, Great Baddow, Chelmsford, Essex, CM2 9RE
Remittances should be made payable to 'The Astronomer'.

THE GREAT COMET OF 1997: NEW HANDBOOK EDITED BY N.JAMES (NEW!)
A record of the 1997 passage of Comet C/1995 O1 (Hale-Bopp)
We have brought together some of the best colour and black and
white pictures of the comet taken by observers from around the
world. A total of 16 high-quality photographs appear on four
full-colour cover pages. Further black and white photographs
illustrate articles written by leading comet observers. There is
also a comprehensive 43 page summary of the comet's daily
performance. Contents:
 Comet Hale-Bopp. Nick James.
 The comet of the century? Jonathan Shanklin.
 A comet observer's diary. Sally Beaumont.
 Observations of synchronic bands in the dust tail. Denis Buczynski
 and Glyn Marsh.
 The history of Hale-Bopp and its debris. Graeme Waddington.
 An astrographic system for Hale-Bopp. Martin Mobberley.
 Daily Observation Record.
The cost of the Handbook is L10.00 exclusive of postage. Please add
the following for postage and handling: 0.50p for UK addresses, L1
for addresses within the EU or L2 for the rest of the world.
Orders to Peter Meadows as above.

TA CD-ROM: (NEW!)
This CD contains over 400MB of material including:
 The entire TA image archive for Comet Hyakutake (C/1996 B2).
 The Comet Hyakutake Handbook in both HTML and PDF formats.
 The Comet Hyakutake visual observations database.
 The interim Comet Hale-Bopp TA image archive.
 An archive of TA e-circulars.
 Adobe PDF viewers for all common operating systems.
The disk is designed to be explored using a web browser such as
Netscape or Internet Explorer. It is mastered to ISO 9660 level 1.
Orders to Peter Meadows as above.
Guy M Hurst