PREFACE

The Handbook for 1944 is the 36th issue. The times of moonrise and moonset, first printed for 1942, now include latitudes 40, 45, 50 and 52 degrees. Added this year are: (1) Table of precession for 50 years, to bring 1900-catalogue positions forward to 1950; (2) Table of representative bright variable stars, with maps of the fields of four naked-eye variables.

Four circular star maps, 9 inches in diameter at a price of one cent each, and a set of four maps, plotted on equatorial coordinates, bound in a cover at a price of ten cents, are obtainable from the Director of University Extension, University of Toronto. For fuller information reference may be made to Norton’s Star Atlas and Reference Handbook (Gall and Inglis, ninth edition (1943),
price 12s 6d).

Throughout this Handbook distances are based on the standard value 8".80 for the sun’s parallax, rather than the new value 8".790 as determined by Sir Harold Jones, the Astronomer Royal. The predictions of the minima of Algol are based on a period of 2.867318 days by W. M. Smart, and from a minimum at J.D. 2,429,234.6859 observed by J. S. Hall.

To the Assistant Editor, Dr. F. S. Hogg, the credit for preparing this volume is chiefly due; but sincere thanks are tendered to all those whose names are mentioned in the book and especially to Miss Ruth J. Northcott of the staff of the David Dunlap Observatory.

C. A. Chant
David Dunlap Observatory,
Richmond Hill, Ont., December 1943.