Customer Reviews

Peterson First Guide to Astronomy (Peterson First Guide (R))

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Thanks to this book, I am now an amateur astronomer. I have a lot of astronomy resources but this is the one I use over and over again. This book is designed for someone without any experience and is an excellent guide for showing someone where to look. Within just a little while the reader will be looking at galaxies, nebulas, and globular clusters... Bob Flater

The Peterson guide is small and compact, but packed with information. When you can't take a huge volume with you, this fits the bill perfectly. I take it on cycling tours and hiking trips, where it fits nicely in a pannier or pocket. It's easy to understand, too - I gave a copy to my young neice for Christmas last year.

Great little book for the beginner.Portable,so you can take it with you on your nighttime prowling of the universe.Written in a manner that newbies such as myself can understand.A good companion to all my other amateur astronomy books.Inexpensive,as well.Not as comprehensive as those other books,but this is a field guide,and it serves its purpose well.

I've always loved the Peterson's guides since I was a kid. Lots of information packed into a nice small book. This is a great little book to keep with you. It is small! You will want larger books for star charts for serious work. But as a small book to always have along, Peterson has come through again.

I bought this book to start off with exploring the night sky and thought I would graduate to something more elaborate later.. Few months down, I am still with this book. It's a neat, compact guide (I carry it in my purse) that will help a beginner but also has enough for someone a little more advanced.

Recognizing this is a $6 "First Guide," overall, it pretty much provides what one would expect: a decent dry survey of constellations, planets, and other astronomical features with some truncated star maps. And it's in a slim handy-to-pocket volume. However, two aspects make this guide subpar, even for the price. First, in a few places they did a poor job of updating the 1988 edition to this 2006 version. For instance, we are told to expect another exciting Leonid meteor shower in 1998 or 1999 (page 62). Second, they should make it clear - on the cover - this guide is geared to the northern latitudes. This little fact is buried in the third paragraph of the introduction.

I find this book most useful for the 12 star maps found at the very begining. It gives basic information about astronomy in a comprehensible manner. The book is handy enough to keep with you and with a small penlight you can reference the maps while observing the night sky, easily fits in a jacket or pans back pocket. Additionally I found the mythology behind the traditional western culture naming of the constellations interesting.

Only criticisms include 1) as previously mentioned, no star charts for the Southern Hemisphere and 2) wasted pages printing illustrations of the characters the constellations represent. These pages could have been used to add Southern Hemisphere maps or to discuss more then the listed 13 constellations.

Quite a well thought out book to take around with you.
BUT... limited use to me as there are no Southern Hemisphere maps or details (even the Southern Cross is absent).
Would not have purchased it had I realised. At least it was cheap!

This book doesn't have any information for the dummy in the astronomy. The book is more like a museum guide to the starts. The information on this book is nothing new and it doesn't teach you about telescopes or related topics.