Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #475617 in Books
• Published on: 2007-10-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 519 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780596526856
• Condition: USED - VERY GOOD
• Notes:
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

About the Author

Customer Reviews

The best current guide to deep-sky objects using modern equipment
The real trick in backyard astronomy is simply finding what's out there. Galaxies and nebulae are notoriously faint, and there are a lot of stars scattered around in the view to confuse things. Just getting there (that is, locating an object and knowing with certainty what you're looking at) may not be half the fun, but it's well over half the challenge.

This book will help a lot. It's a deep-sky observer's guide, written for an era when 12" and 14" instruments are in the hands of ordinary people, and deep-sky objects that used to be the sole province of large observatories can be spotted on a good dark night outside major cities. An alphabetical listing of 50 constellations (the remaining 38 are too far south to be seen well in north temperate latitudes) provides overall maps of each individual constellation, as well as finder charts for about 450 of the best objects in the night sky. Many objects are accompanied by 60' field photographs, which are less to show you how they look (all are long-exposure shots and thus deceptively bright) than to give you a sense for their relative size in the sky: Most deep-sky objects are fairly small, but a few (like M31, M33 and the Veil Nebula) are larger than the full Moon, if orders of magnitude fainter. The photographs put those size differences into perspective.

Those (like myself) without computer-controlled scopes have to locate faint objects by spotting brighter nearby objects (generally bright stars) and then "star-hopping" to the object of interest. For me, the meat of the book lies in the 10 degree finder charts, one for each object, each chart including one or more overlapping 5 degree finder scope field circles for hopping to a 1 degree eyepiece field circle centered on the prize.

The first 65 pages ahead of the constellation listings present introductory material, explaining how the charts in the book work, how to choose and use modern observing equipment, and what all the jargon means. Newbies won't necessarily come in understanding what a "clean split" or a "dirty split" are, nor how the Trumpler Classification system works for open clusters, but it's all laid out here in beautifully clear writing. I was particularly impressed by the coverage of eyepieces and nebula filters, most of which didn't exist even twenty years ago, and certainly not in the late 60s when I learned much of what I know.

The book is full of wonderful small touches, like a note on why there is no such thing as a truly green star, and how some amateur astronomers observe with binoculars by lying in a partially inflated (but empty!) kiddie pool, with the sides of the pool supporting their arms!

I don't have a lot of quibbles. The print seems awfully small to me, but that's about it. (Larger type would have made the book a great deal longer and probably more expensive.)

Highly recommended.

A Highly Recommended Book
It's always a pleasure to come across something really done well.

The team of Robert and Barbara Thompson, who produced the excellent "Astronomy Hacks" in 2005, have come up with a superlative book for beginning to intermediate deep sky observers entitled, "Illustrated
Guide to Astronomical Wonders".

Taking the objects from six well-known observing lists:

= the Messier objects,
= the RASC (Royal Astronomical Society of Canada) Finest NGC objects
= the AL (Astronomical League) Binocular Messier List
= the AL Deep-Sky Binocular List
= the AL Urban Observing List
= the AL Doubles Star List

the authors present 400 outstanding objects, all well within the range of moderate apertures (the largest scope referenced in their book is a 10" reflector). So, while challenging, the number isn't overwhelming and the objects aren't too difficult.


The objects are sorted into fifty constellations available to northern
observers, each given a chapter and presented alphabetically. Each chapter contains:

= A discussion of the constellation

= A full constellation chart showing object locations.

= Tables giving:
- type, size, magnitude, coordinates, etc for each
object
- the originating observing list (Messier, RASC, AL) from
which the object was taken

= Finder charts for each object with uniform 5 degree or 1 degree
circles superimposed, making them adequate for field use

= Individual discussions of each object. Each discussion also
contains a description on how to find the object, as an example,

"...The easiest way we found to locate NGC 7129
was to place mag 4.4 xi on the SE edge of our
finder field and look for mag 5.4 7-Cep which
appears near the NW edge. NGC 7129 lies on a
line between those two stars, about two-thirds
of the way from xi to 7-Cep..."

= Uniform 1 square degree black and white photographs of almost all
of the deep sky objects. These small images better approximate
what a visual observer might actually see at the eyepiece.


= Each object also bears a four level visual rating, ranging from
unimpressive to showpiece and a four level finding difficulty
rating, going from very difficult to easy to find.


To those acquainted with the larger, more expensive two-volume Night Sky Observer's Guide, this chapter format will look familiar,the significant difference being that the NSOG chapters list a selection of variables in each constellation.

Of course the 400 objects of the Thompson book is dwarfed by the 5,541 of the NSOG, but that smaller number in the Illustrated Guide allows it to include more practical finder charts and to better address amateurs equipped with moderate apertures under less than ideal skies. For example, some of the NSOG descriptions only list what you'll see in fairly large scopes, 16 to 18 inches. That's not helpful to many amateur observers.

The first sixty or so pages of the Illustrated Guide contain an intro to DSO observing and a discussion of observing equipment. Both sections are very informative and actually enjoyable because, surprise, they address the concerns of a real practicing amateur observer.

For example, you'll find pointers on how to plan observing sessions but you'll also find things that'll move you off the level of a beginner right away, for example, a description of the Trumpler scale for open clusters and a discussion of perceiving color in blue-green O-III light.

Equipment wise, the Thompsons aren't shy about noting their preferences, for example, their favored planetarium software is Megastar. But they also objectively discuss the pros and cons of telescope types, individual eyepiece lines and the performance of different nebular filters.

The book aims to supply some of the practical wisdom that observers usually have to pick up the hard way - spending time under the night sky and patiently distinguishing the useful from the irrelevant and the hype.

Physically, the Illustrated Guide is an attractive paperback that opens flat and has generous margins on each page for jotting notes.

So general strengths of the book? The Illustrated Guide is a reasonably priced, one-volume guide to deep sky observing written by a knowledgeable observing team that can become a mainstay of any amateur library. Using just this observing guide, a beginning observer could become a relatively advanced amateur in a reasonably short period - yes, I think it's that well designed. For some observers, it might actually make up their entire observing "career".

Urban astronomers may find the black and white images invaluable in helping to identify objects like open clusters that might normally go unrecognized in light polluted skies.

Also, with some qualifications, viewing all the objects in this book will fulfill the requirements for a number of observing certificates, if that's one of your aims.

OK, weaknesses? Well, none really. But something said by the authors in their introduction bears repeating. Amateur astronomy has become almost synonymous with deep sky observing. And that's unfortunate.

Planetary and variable star observing each require different types of observing skill and often different types of equipment. Until excellent guides like the Thompsons' new book are devoted to these branches of amateur astronomy, many people will continue to ignore them.

A Book for All Seasons
In their usual clear and engaging way, the authors have opened up the sky to the newly interested in astronomy. But there's a great deal more in this book that will engage those more familiar with the night sky.

It begins with a primer on observing means and methods, then proceeds to introduce the night sky with a tour through the constellations. The constellations are described, their historical context and mythologies given, and the interesting objects are presented in two main sections Clusters, Nebulae and Galaxies, and Multiple Stars. There are also two subcategories, urban objects and binocular objects that are listed for each constellation. There are other books that use a similar approach, though not usually at the depth presented in this book. The National Audubon Socieity Field Guide to the Night Sky comes to mind.

The book is moderate sized, about 10x8 inches. It lies down flat when open. There is space on many pages to scribble notes, further adding to its value. Some might criticize its black and white format. There are no color pictures, no maps with multiple colored symbols. Rather than a deficiency, the views of the objects in black and white are similar to what you'll see through your scope, and the lack of color makes the images and maps easier to view under red flashlight used by astronomers under night skies to maintain their dark adaptation. There are no Hubble images here. Instead of the images like those printed on the boxes of cheap telescopes sold in big box stores, the images seen through the binoculars and small to medium telescopes used by most amateurs are very similar to what Robert and Barbara have put in the book.

While viewing astronomical objects is a unique and fascinating hobby, collecting books about astronomy is also a great hobby. There is always something new that comes along to pique our interest. This book will be an important part of my astronomy library for years to come.