Sky Guide 2011 -- a call for suggestions

hi everyone,

I've done a fair amount of pre-planning work for the 2011 sky guide and would like YOUR input!

If you have any suggestions as to expanded content, more specific phenomena described, terms explained or what would be useful diagrams of sky events then LET ME KNOW!!!

I'm debating whether to drop the page-per-month calendar because it takes a good bit of time to compile -- one option is to do this later in the year/early 2011. The calendar pages would be replaced by a page-per-month commentary containing more detailed information on the planets visible.

John

John,
Your work in this has been exemplary, also with the previous help of John O'Neill, and it has always been a target of mine to get asap when it has come out. You have had comprehensive information in it before so just what exactly are you looking for as extras now?! I think your commentary idea will do just fine to cut down on the work load.

What's your intended page count? Would you consider short How To's and other small articles by members here as contributions, just like the big magazines would (if I were to contribute I'd only ask for credit and a free printed copy or two if its going).

Keep up the good work!

Seanie.

John,

Your guide is excellent. I can understand the amount of background and prep work that you must do for it. I write a monthly guide and there is a fair amount of prep but nothing compared to an annual guide.

I am sure a monthly commentary page system instead of the current calendar system will still be as informative with less work for yourself.

hi Seanie/Neill,

Many thanks for the kind comments and suggestions. I'm aiming for about 36 to 40 pages Seanie and bar replacing the calendar with the month-by-month summaries, there is probably very little that will change in the layout or topic coverage. I would love to include the articles as suggested and maybe could look at doing so once the main body of the almanac is complete. The articles would need to be on some aspect of observing or directly related to a celestial event during the year to fit the context of the guide. Maybe for people to load up the articles directly to the forum? I was talking to someone on Saturday who may have material on the history of astronomy that they would like to post as articles on the IFAS site.

Thanks again,

John