Star Charts and Astronomical Observing Handbooks
Norton's Star Atlas and Reference Handbook, 20th ed.
Ian Ridpath, ed.
Dutton, 2004
he star positions in this classic work have been updated to the 2000 epoch.
The first half contains general information about astronomy, and the second
half is star charts and tables. Only objects visible to the naked eye (magnitude
6.5 or brighter) are shown. The charts, 17 in all, are actually diagrams
plotted in black, white, and green. The tables show the positions
of "interesting" objects such as double stars and variables.
Beginners will find that this book is of marginal use for learning basic
stuff like the constellations, while the 6.5 limit will disappoint
professionals. However, if you're an intermediate observer, and you
can find every object listed in this book, you will be doing well.
The Cambridge Star Atlas, 3rd ed.
Wil Tirion
Cambridge University Press, 2001, 9×12 inches
ven though this one shows almost exactly the same stars (down to 6.5) as
Norton's, the maps are beautifully drawn, and they're color-coded
in a way that makes it easy to find objects: galaxies are red, stars (9500
in all) black, nebulae green, clusters yellow, and the Milky Way blue.
For stars, the size of the dot indicates the magnitude. The first half of
the book shows the constellations as white stars on a blue background for
each month in the northern and southern hemispheres. These aren't quite
as beautiful, but are still useful.
Sky Atlas 2000.0, 2nd ed.
Wil Tirion and Roger W. Sinnott
Sky Publishing, 1998
his intermediate-level star atlas includes 81,312 stars down to magnitude
8.5. I recommend the “Deluxe” version, which uses the same color
code as The Cambridge Star Atlas. It's also spiral-bound.
The cheaper “Field” version has black stars on a white background.
The Desk version and the book Star Maps for Beginners, on the other
hand, use white stars on a black background. These should be avoided,
because white dots on a dark background are a lot harder to see than black
dots or colored dots on a white background. While the spiral binding in the
Deluxe version of Sky Atlas is nice, the color coding is, in my
opinion, essential. Note that this book is maps only--unlike other books,
there are no tables indicating R.A. & declination, and no indication of
spectrum or type. The 33 fold-out maps are 16×22 inches. With charts
like these, who needs to go outside?
Stars and Planets
The Most Complete Guide to the Stars, Planets, Galaxies, and
the Solar System
Ian Ridpath and Wil Tirion
Princeton University Press, 4th ed, 2007
lphabetical list of the 88 constellations, drawn as white stars on
a blue background, in a 5×7 inch field guide. Has lots of
information about the important stars in each constellation and
its history. Numerous high-quality color photographs. Very handy
if you're not sure what the heck you saw ... but is this little
paperback really “the most complete”? Not even close.
Turn Left at Orion
Consolmagno and Davis
(no rating)
ntroductory book to give to kids or teenagers along with their
first telescope. Uses very simple language. Detailed directions on how
to find one hundred of the most popular objects in the sky. The objects
are listed in order of their season: winter, spring, summer, and autumn.
Although too simple for adults, kids will learn a lot without being
overwhelmed.
(Disclaimer: I only leafed through this one.)
Deep-Sky Companions: The Messier Objects
Stephen James O'Meara
Cambridge University Press, 1998
his book has high-quality white-on-black background photographs
of each of the 110 Messier Objects and helpful notes on their
appearance. Each object gets one to three pages. Some objects are
also accompanied by the author's hand-drawn sketches. In some cases,
the sketch shows too narrow a field, and
a star chart would be necessary to find the object. This is one of
the few books of this genre that are actually readable. Each object
starts on a different page (more or less). The layout is visually
appealing, and there is even a useful index. The author's ability
to see patterns in the stars where none exist is remarkable. I'd
like to get my hands on some of this guy's shrooms.
Burnham's Celestial Handbook
Robert Burnham, Jr
Dover, 1978, 2138 pages in three volumes
he constellations haven't changed much since this 2100-page reference
book was published in 1978, and the typewriter-style Courier typeface,
while not exactly professional looking, is still perfectly readable.
These three volumes contain a ton of information, listing over 7000
heavenly objects in the form of tables, and good quality gray-scale
astrophotographs. The most important get a highly readable if
occasionally long-winded narrative about their appearance and
history. It's way too advanced for a kid, but the 24 pages for
each constellation (on average) should be required reading for
anyone seriously interested in the subject. This inexpensive
Dover paperback reprint is of excellent quality.
(Disclaimer: I have not yet finished reading this book.)
Observing Handbook and Catalogue of Deep-Sky Objects
Christian B. Luginbuhl and Brian A. Skiff
Cambridge University Press, 1989
sing their own non-standard nomenclature, Luginbuhl and Skiff
accompany this list of deep-sky objects (clusters, nebulae and galaxies)
with hand-drawn diagrams, poor quality astrophotographs, and crude maps
in which North is pointed every which way. The objects are listed in the
constellation they appear in. Stars are, for the most part, ignored.
What this book lacks in visual appeal, findability and readability, it
makes up for by providing verbal descriptions of over 2000 objects.
Each object gets 5 or 6 lines of notes on its general shape and any
distinguishing features. These will be invaluable in confirming the
sighting of a deep-sky object. The book ends with a 56-page table
listing the objects and their position, type, and size. The made-up
names, while confusing, are not wholly arbitrary. For example, they
describe a nebula called "gn 6587", which is their term for NGC-6587
in Cygnus. Andromeda is only referred to as "eg 224" and Messier 31.
There is no index. The writing style is professional: just facts, no
chit-chat. If the authors had included a diagram of each object and
used conventional notation, this could have been the best book on
the subject.
(Disclaimer: I did not read this book in its entirety.)
3-D Atlas of Stars and Galaxies
Monkhouse and Cox
Springer, 2000
orget Avatar. This book is about real 3D objects in real space,
and without the facile moralizing of the movie. It contains 42
large-format three-dimensional maps of the stars, divided into three
sections: 8 maps of nearby stars (less than 25 parsecs), where the size of the dot
depends on the distance; 18 maps of bright stars (up to 20 kpc), where the dot size
represents magnitude, and galaxy maps (up to 1.3 Gly), where the size of
the ellipse mainly indicates whether or not it's Andromeda. Only the middle
section bears any resemblance to the real night sky. The first
section is useless, and is probably designed for readers who
have trouble seeing the 3D effect.
In this book, the stars and galaxies are plotted as red or green dots and ellipses on a brown background. A pair of red/green 3D glasses is included. The red-green system has limitations: in order to work, only half as many stars can be shown as on a regular map. Even so, there are many ambiguities where the same dots line up in two possible ways. For nearby objects, the parallax is too large for the reader to focus.
You should note that these are maps, not astrophotographs, but they're calculated from data collected by the ESA's Hipparcos astrometric satellite, which measured the positions of 120,000 stars to an accuracy of one milliarcsecond. On the page facing each map is a conventional map of the same region with the stars and constellations labeled.
This is the only book I know of that shows you the true spatial configuration of the stars. If you've got good three-dimensional processing ability, decent binocular vision, and a tolerance for going cross-eyed, you will wonder how you ever lived without the information in this book. Best of all, it's smurf-free. However, I must admit it's more entertaining than educational.
See also
Astronomy and Astrophysics Books
See also
Amateur Astronomy Books
