Alex "The CWAD" Downey's nickname arises from his initials, and is best pronounced "Quod" or "Kwod" .

    "The CWAD" is Preston FM's self-appointed astro-physical, astronomical and astronautical correspondent.  Despite that, he sometimes worries that he might have an unhealthy relationship with "The Goon Show".

     With the learned  animal-behaviourist "Creepy" John Vale, I co-host "The Cwad and Creepy Hour", a jocular broadcast about wild animals, space exploration, and, if you're lucky, animals in space. Some of it's even true.

    The most recent "Cwad and Creepy Hour" began at noon on Wednesday, 21st July, 2010. We were  able to interview a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, Dr Keith Robinson, by telephone from Lancaster. He recently addressed the Blackpool & District Astronomical Society on the subject of Variable Stars; I asked him about local amateur astronomical societies, his memories of the Apollo Moon-landing project and how to get started in astronomy - especially without previous scientific background.

    My thanks go to "Creepy" John and his lady friend, and to the technical staff at Preston FM. You know who you are!

        - Updated by The CWAD,  Friday 23 July 2010

    If "The Goon Show" is new to you, then I would like to connect you to:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0072vdz where you can find BBC Radio 7 shows. Do you get a web-feed outside the UK, by the way? Please let me know at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .

        Whether experienced expert or absolute beginner, you may be interested in:

      http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/padas/                                                    to read about Preston & District Astronomical Society,

      http://www.blackpoolastronomy.org.uk/                                          for their siblings in and around Blackpool, or

      http://www.boltonastro.org.uk/Gallery/thumbnails.php?album=20 for the Boltonian cousins.

       http://www.lmastrosoc.com/                                                          comes from the lovely Lancaster & Morecambe mob.

     If you want to read about a national organization, then please consider:

     http://www.popastro.com/                                                               - the site of the Society for Popular Astronomy;    

     http://britastro.org/baa/                                                                    -  from the British Astronomical Association

                                                                                                                                 (a club for serious amateurs);

or, mainly for the academic professional:  http://www.ras.org.uk/ ,             for the prestigious Royal Astronomical Society. 

    "John Bull's Other Island"   (thank you, GB Shaw) offers:

    http://irishastro.org.uk/                                                                        from the Belfast-based Irish Astronomical Association;

    http://www.irishastrosoc.org/wordpress/                                                from the Dublin-based Irish Astronomical Society;

    http://www.irishastronomy.org/cms/                                                      from the Irish Federation of Astronomical Societies; &

    http://www.astronomy.ie/index.php                                                       from Astronomy Ireland, which seems to be like the SPA.

                                                                                           You can look for their podcast radio show! Please tell me how useful it is.

     http://www.iau.org/                                                                          comes from the International Astronomical Union,

                                                                                            and is intended for the professional astronomer and astro-physicist.

     For the Pluto-categorization controversy, you might  consult: 

      http://www.iau.org/public/pluto/ or  http://www.iau.org/static/resolutions/Resolution_GA26-5-6.pdf

    Please note that Pluto, the object, has not been "abolished" !   It has merely been re-categorized in the light of recent discoveries, to avoid our having to call dozens of things planets - professional astronomers expect to find many more "plutoids" in the next few years.

     To find out what's to be seen, you could try: http://britastro.org/journal/pdf/120-3skynotes.pdf . This seems to be updated every two months. Bravo!

     There's also: http://www.popastro.com/monthlymap.htm .

    There are several useful monthly magazines for the amateur astronomer, active or armchair-type, for example:

UK-based:       http://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/Default.asp?bhcp=1     http://www.astronomynow.com/

US-American:  http://www.skyandtelescope.com/                                           http://www.astronomy.com/asy/default.aspx 

All four have observer's advisory pages, and even articles for beginners about spectrometry, celestial mechanics, etc. They sometimes carry southern-hemisphere info for readers in Australasia and southern Africa.

    The British Interplanetary Society publishes "Spaceflight": http://www.bis-spaceflight.com/spaceflight.htm :

- light reading for serious engineers;

& the "Astronomy Now" stable also publishes on astronautics, for the rest of us:  http://spaceflightnow.com/ 

     The  next time that we speak to Dr Robinson, FRAS, I hope to ask him about his specialism - Variable Stars. Meanwhile, I wish you all  good luck, and remind you to keep watching the skies! ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0044121/quotes )

         - The CWAD, Friday 23 July 2010