Autumn brings cool and hopefully clear nights; it also means the annual edition of the Observers Handbook (OH) will soon land in our mailboxes.Many autumns ago, I attended my first RASC meeting at the Halifax Centre and was given a copy of the Observers Handbook. The cover was unceremoniously ripped off before my eyes, something to do with not giving the Milky Way away for free. I read through that copy cover to cover, discovering a few surprising morsels of information, such as nebular filter graphs, exit pupil and binocular charts, as well as observing lists. Fast forward to 2018-as I prepared a talk on "The Styles of RASC Observing Throughout the Years" for a General Assembly history symposium, I found myself perusing the Observers Handbook of yesteryears. In fact, the webmaster had scanned up to 1967 at the time, and now up to 1989.1 really didn't expect to find much, but nonetheless browsed through all the copies, taking note of anything observing related.
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