The British Astronomical Association was formed in 1890 and membership is open to all persons interested in astronomy. It has an international reputation for the quality of its observational and scientific work.
The Computing Section began in 1920. Its work is nowadays largely concerned with the preparation of the annual Handbook of the British Astronomical Association, together with data for other publications.
On this site you will find, amongst other things,
- useful observing aids in the form of applets and scripts, calculating in real time, often with a detailed graphical display;
- finder charts for currently visible comets and asteroids;
- Handbook sections which hardly change from year to year;
- background information about the Handbook and its contributors;
- history of the Computing Section.
BAA members can download a PDF version of the Handbook from the Downloads option on the logged-in Members menu of the main BAA site.
What's new
You may need to clear your browser's cache to see latest changes (in Windows: Ctrl+F5).
- 2012 Jan 21 - Asteroid charts now cover all oppositions brighter than magnitude 12 up to 2012 Mar 15.
- 2011 Dec 28 - Comet charts for January added.
- 2011 Dec 24 - A new Errata section in the Handbooks page links to a corrected table of minima of RZ Cas for 2012.
- 2011 Dec 13 - Asteroid charts now cover all oppositions brighter than magnitude 12 up to 2012 Feb 29. The last entry is 433 Eros which will be only 0.18 AU from us at the beginning of February. It is well placed for UK observers now (Dec 13) at magnitude 10.1 in Leo Minor.
- 2011 Dec 1 - The charts page has been split into several sub-pages with a new page for comet charts.
- 2011 Nov 30 - The minor planet charts page has been revised to include oppositions brighter than magnitude 12 up to 2012 Feb 9.
- 2011 Sep 28 - A new feature has been added to the "What's observable" applet. When you have clicked near an object to display its details there is a new button "Show chart". This opens a window containing a chart of stars down to magnitude 12 in a square 6° x 6° around the object.
- 2011 Sep 20 - The charts page has been promoted to a new tab of its own. Tabs for books and journals have been removed (all journals have now been digitised).
- 2011 Sep 1 - Predicted appulses of minor planets are now tabulated and charts are provided for the most observable of the encounters: link.
- 2011 Aug 24 - The minor planets list in the "What's observable" applet is now longer, comprising all those which reach magnitude 12 or brighter at next opposition. Hint: type initial letter to get quickly to the right part of the long list.
