Millennium Star Atlas: An All-Sky Atlas Comprising One Million Stars to Visual Magnitude Eleven from the Hipparcos and Tycho Catalogues and Ten Thousand Nonstellar Objects [Hardcover]

Roger W. Sinnott (Author), Michael A. C. Perryman (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: Sky Pub Corp; 3 volume slipcased set edition (November 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0933346840
• ISBN-13: 978-0933346840
• Product Dimensions: 14 x 9.8 x 5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 19.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,517,077 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The deepest readily available paper atlas, January 20, 2002

By 

Ritesh Laud (Houston, TX USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Millennium Star Atlas: An All-Sky Atlas Comprising One Million Stars to Visual Magnitude Eleven from the Hipparcos and Tycho Catalogues and Ten Thousand Nonstellar Objects (Hardcover)

I guess I'm old fashioned when it comes to using a telescope, but I prefer a paper atlas to laptops and software star atlases. And I also prefer star-hopping to using GOTO or setting circles. If you're like me, you already know you're buying this massive work. Yes it's expensive. Yes it weighs about twenty pounds. But it's the ultimate paper atlas for the star-hopper. The three volumes (each covering eight hours of RA) together have over one million stars plotted on their pages!

The binding and paper are of superb quality, sufficient for this atlas to actually be used out in the field! Unfortunately, after you see how pretty it is (and remember how much it cost), you'll probably be content to let it sit safely on the shelf to be used as a reference. Personally, I use an 8" Dob and hence generally observe objects bright enough for Tirion's Sky Atlas 2000.0 to be an adequate atlas. I have taken the MSA out a couple times but it was overkill.

For owners of larger scopes who wish to go after the fainter DSOs, a Mag 11 atlas like the MSA is a bare minimum. A computer atlas going down to Mag 13 or so would be even better, but if you like paper then the MSA is the way to go. I eventually do plan to make heavy use of the MSA out in the field, but probably not until I get a larger scope.

The closest competition to the MSA is Tirion's Uranometria 2000.0 2nd Edition. Note that although it doesn't plot anywhere near the number of stars the MSA does, Uranometria plots three times the number of deep sky objects (30,000). Therefore, owners of very large telescopes may be better served with Uranometria since it plots the very faint DSOs that MSA skips.

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Millennium Star Atlas, June 8, 2000

By 

Scott Hogsten (United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Millennium Star Atlas: An All-Sky Atlas Comprising One Million Stars to Visual Magnitude Eleven from the Hipparcos and Tycho Catalogues and Ten Thousand Nonstellar Objects (Hardcover)

The best description is a Massive Three Volume Set. This is a great Atlas - The organization is much better than Uranometria and the print and sizing of the stars is much better. This may not be the most practical at the telescope atlas but it is printed on high quality paper and the books do open and lay flat. I find this atlas very useful for going after the small faint stuff where you have to know the star patterns to ID the fields.