Customer Reviews

Atlas of the Deep-Sky Splendors

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Because the author presents photographs of significant objects in the context of the night sky that realistically reflects how the amateur will actually perceive them is what makes this volume so valuable. Images from powerful observatory telescopes, as marvelous and instructive as they are, tend to raise our expectations about what we are likely to encounter with our relatively small telescopes. Instead the author opts for the subtle drama inherent within an "honest" representation of the proportions of our night sky. The b&w photographs by the author are surprisingly effective given this 'age of color'--indeed, when viewing the night sky through our modest telescopes, the overall effect is one that most resembles the b&w sphere. Again, this is consistent with the author's philosophy: color-sensitive film reveals a spectrum that our eyes themselves are not sensitive to viewing the sky through a scope. I am especially impressed by books that reflect an author's earnestness for the subject matter and approach itself, but this book ranks even high among this select group.

This book by Hans Vehrenberg is a compilation of a lot of very nice pictures of deep-sky objects taken with more or less modest photographic equipment before the digital processing era. It includes full explanations about each object.

This books shows what can be achieved by a good amateur astrophotographer.