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Book Project: Discovering Double Stars


Ags

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8 minutes ago, badhex said:

After 30+ years of struggling with right-handed scissors, it only in the last 5 years occurred to me that we could have TWO pairs of kitchen scissors - lefty for me, righty for my partner. 

Pardon my ignorance, but what is the difference?

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11 minutes ago, Ags said:

If you are left handed, right-handed scissors don't cut.

Still confused. I took scissors now and used the with my right hand - they cut, used them with my left hand - they cut as well.

Only difference was in how I applied slight pressure to achieve shear action. With right hand I "pushed" thumb and "pulled" other fingers, and with left arm I "pulled" thumb and "pushed" other fingers.

In either case - you'll apply slight force in such way as to "bring scissor blades together" and not apart with respect to joint.

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Ok, found it on wiki - and it sort of makes sense, although I never thought about it.

It turns out that natural way the hand moves is for thumb to push and fingers to pull - and that makes distinction.

Awkwardness that I was feeling when cutting with left hand was not because I'm right handed - but because it is natural to push with thumb, although, I just tried and I wound not mind using left handed scissors if needed with my right hand (it only took a bit of mental effort to adjust pulling / pushing action).

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As well as the mechanical considerations, there is also the fact that quite commonly (at least in the UK when I was growing up) 'normal' scissors are ergonomically shaped to fit a righty, but not a lefty. Putting your thumb through that hole is like torture. Observe:

image.thumb.png.5b05ca0a738e337e76be86a727139477.png

Hence the left handed scissors, which are in all aspects (ergonomically and mechanically) mirrored.

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Edited by badhex
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It's a bit disturbing that my efforts at writing make people think of scissors and cutting things up!

While we get the data together for the deep sky book (Caldwell done, Messier in progress, with planetaries, globs, variables and carbon stars to come), I have gone back to the doubles project. I want a fancy one with premium color plates and hard cover for my bookshelf, and I was thinking to make it more special it could cover the full sky. Also some friends have pointed out it is very "Northist" of me to only have a doubles book for the northern hemisphere, so a companion volume for the southern hemisphere is required. The All Sky version is up to 287 doubles, but I will have to find a few more for the sparser charts.

I'll put up drafts PDFs this weekend. Section titles need to be reworked to months not seasons of course.

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Edited by Ags
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  • 3 weeks later...

A little update, I am working through the southern hempisphere doubles and should have a southern hemisphere version complete by month end. When the southern hemisphere version is complete I can produce the the hardback "all sky" version (with full color plates!) from the same source data.

In addition I have put together a collection of about 1000 objects for other works I want to produce, collating information on objects like planetaries, globulars, carbon and variable stars.

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A friend asked about a sketching book, so I quickly put together a ring-bound A5 Messier sketch book like the following.

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Note the above extract is the printer PDF and I am using full bleed printing on this one, so it includes 0.635 cm around the edges that gets cropped. The finder page goes down to mag 7.5. The notes/sketch page is based on the BAA observer form, although it only includes one sketching area. Any thoughts on whether this would be useful, or how to improve the form, which I have struggled over to be honest?

Edited by Ags
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  • 3 weeks later...

I just received the test copy of my astro notebook (the generic version without Messier/Caldwell finder charts), mischievously dubbed by my partner as the "grown-up nerd's coloring book". Overall I am pleased with the general heft of the book, the layout and the cover, but there are a couple of bugs. Lines printed on the back side of a page ghost through in the sketching circle, and the left-hand form labels sail too close to the ring binding.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Got the print proof of the Caldwell log book. The labels no longer collide with the ring binding, but I may need to print on thicker coated paper to prevent shadowing of print from the opposite side of the page into the sketching area.

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Caldwell_log2.thumb.jpg.e1d4f4aba41e544636f15e8feae4ffb7.jpg

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4 hours ago, Ags said:

Got the print proof of the Caldwell log book. The labels no longer collide with the ring binding, but I may need to print on thicker coated paper to prevent shadowing of print from the opposite side of the page into the sketching area.

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Caldwell_log2.thumb.jpg.e1d4f4aba41e544636f15e8feae4ffb7.jpg

Looking good Agnes 👍🏻

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  • 2 weeks later...

Still waiting for the test copy of the Caldwell log book.

In the mean time I have been working on the Southern Hemisphere double stars book, which led to re working the Northern Hemisphere version. I extended the coverage for each hemisphere further beyond the celestial equator (better for people at moderate latitudes), and - because the two guides overlap - extended the target lists to ensure there is sufficient unique content in each book. With the overview maps redistributed, the number of doubles stars in each section went out of whack so I had to add more doubles to plug the gaps.

I just finished reworking the Northern Hemisphere version and it is now up to 300 doubles (up from 179 in the initial version) - hopefully it won't be too heavy! The Southern Hemisphere book has 259 doubles, with maps reversed for south-at-top. The two books overlap by about 150 stars (because the equatorial regions are largest area of the sky). The coffee-table hardback with pretty pictures and all doubles from the whole sky has just over 400 doubles. I'll put up PDF previews of the books this week.

Edited by Ags
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I have made the PDF version of the new edition of the Northern Hemisphere double stars book available, and I would appreciate any comments. The main changes are (1) new maps covering the near southern sky, (2) coverage extended from 179 doubles to 300 doubles, (3) SAO/HIP numbers added to all doubles.

Discovering Double Stars 

In addition, early drafts are available of the Southern Hemisphere book and All-Sky book:

Work in Progress

And I have three entirely new books available - log books for the Caldwell and Messier catalogs, and a generic log book without finder charts. I burned through a number of test books to get these right, and i had lots of issues with text and graphics shadowing through the pages onto the opposite side.

Stargazer's Logs

log_cover.jpg

log_main_page.jpg

log_generic_page.jpg

log_contents2.jpg

Edited by Ags
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  • 2 weeks later...

I (and probably a million other people) have been invited to join the Amazon Hardback Beta program, so I have added hardback as an option for the double stars book on Amazon. There are no changed to the internals, still the same coverage of 300 doubles. I have also made the new expanded version available as paperback and coil-bound. THe book is much bigger and printing costs are up accordingly... More details and the free PDF available below:

Discovering Double Stars

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