This can be obtained second hand from ~£22. Mallas (who produced the text and drawings using a 4-inch refractor) and Evered Kreimer (who took the photographs using a 12.5-inch reflector). A slim, but excellent book, worth tracking down is ‘The Messier Album: An Observer’s Handbook’ by John H. He has also written further books in this series: ‘The Calwell Objects’, ‘The Secret Deep’, ‘Hidden Treasures’ and ‘Southern Gems’. A further excellent book also published by CUP is ‘Deep Sky Companions: The Messier Objects’ by Stephen James O’Meara. A most impressive book, with wonderful large scale images, is ‘Atlas of the Messier Objects’ by Ronald Stoyan (CUP). The Messier Catalogue is covered by many books. Two of the M42 diagrams in “Turn Left at Orion” along with the author’s image. Also, no beginner should be without ‘Turn Left at Orion’ by Guy Consolmagno (the Pope’s astronomer) which describes one hundred objects to observe with binoculars or a small telescope. There are sections on each of the major constellations and the objects to be seen within them and guides to observing the planets. ![]() Titled ‘Philip’s Night Sky Atlas’, it includes star charts by Will Tirion along with photo-realistic versions of the same regions and four excellent (one for each quadrant) lunar charts. This can sometimes be found second hand but is now quite rare.īooks relating to observing the night skyĪ wonderful, and low cost (~£10), beginner’s guide to what can be seen in the heavens has been written by Robin Skagell. It includes very detailed maps drawn by Wilkins. This is the highest resolution lunar chart available and can be bought second hand for ~£64.Ī classic Book with excellent descriptions of lunar craters and features written by Patrick Moore is ‘The Moon’ by Wilkins and Moore. The, large scale, ‘Times Atlas of the Moon’ is based on the Lunar Surveyer images and charted by the US Air Force. This is ~£25 from Amazon but may be found for less. (New copies are VERY expensive!) A superb photographic atlas is the ’21 st Century Atlas of the Moon’ by Wood and Collins. It is well worth seeking out a second hand copy. The star fields are wonderful but not so ‘artistic’ as those taken by Akira Fujii.Ī classic, hand drawn, lunar atlas is the ‘Atlas of the Moon’ by Antonin Rükl. (Bordas)Ī more modern photographic star atlas is ‘The Cambridge Photographic Atlas of the Stars’ by Axel Mellinger and Ronald Stoyan which is available new for ~£40. The transparent overlay over the Leo Image in ‘The Grand Atlas of the Stars’. A small section is shown in Figure below. This can be bought second-hand for ~£25 (new £131!) and I urge you to buy one. The two figures below show the Cassiopeia region and a larger scale crop of the lower left part of the plot.Ī wonderful photographic star atlas, ‘The Great Atlas of the Stars’ by Serge Brunier, includes star fields taken by Akira Fujii and uses transparent overlays to highlight objects within the field. ![]() The size and saturation of the font for each object indicates what sized telescope (4, 8 and 12-inch) could be used to observe them visually. This contains 113 charts showing stars down to 9.5 magnitudes with clusters, galaxies and nebulae shown in colour. However, there is no doubt that the best, by far, is the new ‘Interstellarium Deep Sky Atlas’ by Stoyan and Schurig (Cambridge University Press – CUP). ![]() A smaller version, also by Tirion, is the ‘The Cambridge Star Atlas 4 th Edition’ that can be obtained new for ~£25. This can be obtained second hand for ~£64 (~£150 new). These are some of the best:-Ī classic, large scale, atlas is Will Tirion’s ‘Sky Atlas 2000 2 nd Edition’. I know that there are excellent planetarium programs, discussed below, that show you what is visible in the heavens, but I still think that it is useful to have at least one star atlas that can be perused at leisure to perhaps find interesting objects to observe or image.
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