awesome new magazine

I just got the first issue of Astronomy Technology Today. It's a new monthly magazine about astro products. It has some nice articles about the astro gear we all love to chat about.

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I enjoyed the magazine and feel it fills a void not covered in other monthly magazines. I did feel that several of the articles were a bit promotional in nature but I still found them very informational and overall, a very enjoyable publication. I plan on subscribing.

I received my copy today and bought a 1 year subscription for the inflated price of $12!! I read it from cover to cover and think it is an awesome publication. Hope they can thrive. Magazine startups are brutal! It fills a gap that the big boys don't.

Hope it doesn't mirror what most high end audio magazines became. The ones that taught you something, like Audio Amateur and Glass Audio, never became big, while those that were full of subjective review hype and accolades for big advertisers, like Stereo Review and Stereophile, eventually took over their markets. Audio eventually flopped, after decades of publication, due to its adherence to principles and objective reporting. An astro gear magazine that mirrors what Stereophile did in the audiophile world is long overedue....for business reasons. Wonder how much long-term ad money it takes to get your astro gear into a 'Class A' category? After Larry Greenhill bought Stereophile from J. Gordon Holt, the honest (but perhaps inept in business) founder, the number of audio components in 'Class A' went up along with the increase in ad revenue and paid circulation. The mag got bigger and glossier while the cost to the subscriber went down. I started tossing my Stereophile mags in a pile without reading them, until my long-term subscription expired, then I gave them all away. There is no such thing as two dozen components in any category that can rate state-of-the-art Class A at any given time. Two or three only made the cut at a given time when JGH ran the magazine, plus he had the guts to tell the truth about Bose 901 loudspeakers, and got threatened with a lawsuit and saw Bose pull their advertising from his mag for as long as he owned it. Larry Greenhill, a guy who owned foreign car repair shops before buying Stereophile, never made THAT mistake again. Big advertisers have never been embarassed with a bad review since he took over. I wonder what percentage of ads Meade will have in this new astro mag, and what reviews of their new gear will say.

Follow the money. Whether the mag is supported more by advertisers or subscribers will determine whose interests are served.