My Heavens!: The Adventures of a Lonely Stargazer Building an Over-the-Top Observatory (Patrick Moore's Practical Astronomy Series) [Paperback]

Gordon Rogers (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 6, 2007 | Series: Patrick Moore's Practical Astronomy Series

My Heavens! charts the progress of the author’s own substantial observatory from conception, through design, planning and construction, to using an observatory of the kind that all amateur astronomers aspire to own. For those with more modest ambitions, the book offers many hints, tips and design features for smaller observatories. Comparisons are made with similar large projects in the USA. The story doesn’t end with the construction of the observatory, but goes on to describe the author’s choice of equipment, setting it up, and his own techniques for obtaining superb astronomical images like those displayed in his book.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Perhaps you are already a stargazer using a small telescope you bring out to your back yard on clear nights. Perhaps you have a larger telescope that is mounted outside and protected from inclement weather. Perhaps you just dream of someday owning a fancy telescope set-up and turning it skyward to view the neighboring planets and moons of the Solar System or the stars that wink at you from millions of miles away.

Whether you might want to undertake building an over-the-top dome observatory yourself or not, you are sure to enjoy this informative tale by Gordon Rogers, told with humor and humility, of his torturous but ultimately rewarding experience with building for himself, attached to his own home, a fancy and sophisticated dome observatory, just for the pleasure of sky watching on beautiful nights (of which there are far too few in England!). Read about all the thinking and planning that went into this venture, and the options considered and rejected. Read about the choices and mistakes made along the way. Finally, read and discover the joys of sky watching using state-of-the-art equipment, and share in the author’s frustrations and triumphs as he completed this project of a lifetime.

About the Author

Gordon Rogers lives in England. He is a qualified building surveyor, a Fellow of the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors as well as a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society. His beautiful deep-sky images regularly appear in the astronomical magazines. He contributed a chapter to More Small Observatories, by Sir Patrick Moore (Springer, 2002). He lives in what is probably the only traditional English part-thatched cottage to feature an observatory dome!

Product Details

• Paperback: 196 pages
• Publisher: Springer; 1 edition (December 6, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0387737812
• ISBN-13: 978-0387737812
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,942,225 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

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4.0 out of 5 stars Amateur Astronomers and Their Observatories, October 22, 2010

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John Redmond (Cazenovia, NY USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: My Heavens!: The Adventures of a Lonely Stargazer Building an Over-the-Top Observatory (Patrick Moore's Practical Astronomy Series) (Kindle Edition)

If you are considering going beyond the reasonable, and would like to build your own observatory, this is the book for you. As a matter of fact, it's an entertaining account of the experience of several avid amateurs. The style is in general wryly humorous, as you would expect when you consider what the author is reporting on: an over-the-top pursuit of an absorbing and potentially expensive hobby.

There is a lot of detail, perhaps too much for the reader who cannot hope to duplicate the author's project. But I enjoyed the account very much.