SUNSET: 
3Sky & Telescope has had a digital edition since early in 2010.
February 2011 S&T
All digital subscribers are automatically sent e-mail when a new issue becomes available. Unfortunately, in the modern world of copious spam and aggressive spam filters, e-mail is no longer the reliable medium that it used to be. A sizable fraction of all e-mails that are sent out fail to land in their intended recipient's in-boxes.
So to supplement the e-mail notifications, I plan to post something on the S&T website every time a new digital issue is made available.
Click here to read the latest issue if you're a subscriber.
Click here to see what's in the latest issue.
Click here to find out more about digital subscriptions.
Comments
Starsend
December 24, 2010 at 6:10 pm
If I subscribe to the digital S&T how long do I have access to the current issue? Years from now, will I have access to digital back issues for all those years? If years from now I decide to end my subscription do I loose access to all the digital issues I've paid for? Is there a way to down load my digital issue and read it on my device when I don't have internet access? Say on an airplane?
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Mark Looper
January 3, 2011 at 9:39 am
S&T is way more reasonable about their download formats than a lot of other online magazines. I don't know about how long you will have access to back issues online, but when you log in to your account via nxtbook.com you will find a link to "Save to your desktop" at the upper right of the browser window (the icon looks like a folded newspaper). If you click on this, you are presented with three options for ways to read the magazine offline, from which you can choose any or all: (1) a self-contained application based on Adobe's AIR, (2) a Java applet, or (3) a plain-vanilla PDF. The first two give you some extra functionality like links within the text, jumping from the table of contents to the article, etc.; the PDF option gives you pretty much universal compatibility. I always download all three, just because I can (I'm a digital packrat), but I always end up reading the magazine in PDF form on my iPad. And yes, it works fine on an airplane.
Again, I know nothing about online access or how long it will last, but S&T is to be commended for giving us offline options not encumbered by DRM or by proprietary software or formats. I expect to be referring to the PDF back issues (I have them from the beginning of 2010) via my thought-controlled holographic display a couple of decades from now.
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Mark Looper
January 3, 2011 at 9:50 am
Sorry, forgot to point out -- subscribers can click on the "archive" link at the bottom of any issue's online nxtbook.com page to read and/or download back issues starting with the beginning of 2010. This is another enlightened move on the part of S&T. (If you want electronic versions of earlier years' issues, you'll need to buy the seven-decade DVD collection.)
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