Customer Reviews

A Field Guide to the Stars and Planets

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Depending on what you're going to need in the field, this book won't help you very much with navigating the stars all that well "visually" because the pages are so small, but it IS very helpful on the technical info side of things, with lots of descriptions about what is interesting in a particular sector of the sky, or what you will probably be able to see in a moderate to large amateur-sized 'scope. Has common names as well as catalog numbers for most objects, and there is a cross-reference list if you don't know the difference between M7 and M11 (I don't). There are lots of what I call classic "pretty" pictures of deep sky objects that you will never come close to seeing in real life, except by astrophotography maybe, but they are very nice to look at.

This book is starting to show its age at over 10 years old. Some of the time-sensitive data is getting out of date. Overall, except for the star "charts" being so small and cramped, this is really an excellent reference book with useful tips on what to observe, where and when.

Couple this book with something like the amazing Wil Tirion's Star Atlas 2000.0, and maybe a top-notch computer sky gazing program like Starry Night 3 or 4, and you've got a valuable reference book in a very small package that can't be beaten. It's still one of my favorite books to take in the field with me, but you can't rely solely on it. It has even stood up to the test of wear and tear over the years. Very durable, it resists lots of moisture and handling. It's made of glossy heavy-bond paper, the cover is a kind of plastic-y material impregnated with woven fibers. Very nice, but I have to knock one star off for not being spiral bound. I guess they wanted to go for durability, instead of usability, which I guess balances out a little in the long run. Happy hunting!~

This is not a large book with fantastic photographs from the great observatories. That isn't to say there isn't some great photography in this book though because there is. Many of the photos are ones that appear the way you would see them with a scope that has a 10 to 14 inch mirror, which many amateurs possess. Incredible photographs of incredible sights in the galaxy and universe are featured in this book plus stars thru the 7th magnitude and other various heavenly wonders on constellation maps. Stars to magnitude 3.5 are listed in the back that also includes a good glossary. Probably not a good book for someone who is starting out trying to locate the constellations but there is plenty of other information here that makes this book worth having even if you are starting out.