Customer Reviews

The Photographic Atlas of the Stars (UK edition)

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The book is generally awesome. The entire sky is photographeddown to 8th magnitude (meaning you need binoculars to see them all inthe sky) stars. Typically each full-page photo has three back-up pages including narrative and a corresponding chart which identifies all the interesting objects. Now here's where the book is frustrating: Pages 14 through 19 contain ultra wide angle photos which together DO NOT cover the entire sky. Also, these ultra wide angle photos are miniaturized and don't get the same treatment as the photos in the rest of the book. The result is a beautiful book that shows a lot of "trees", elating amateur astronomers, but which does not show "the forest". Beginner astronomers who want to quickly, photographically see the relative positions of constellations must turn elsewhere.

There are no errors in the plotting of any of the objects shown in this star atlas. Why? Because all the maps are photographs! Each map consists of an unmarked photograph, a black and white copy of the photograph marked with star names and other useful landmarks, and a text description of many of the interesting objects on the map.

The authors have made a supreme and largely successful effort to calibrate the colors and scale to match human perception of the night sky. A few notable nebulae and stars appear different in the atlas than what we would actually see due to the differing sensitivities of film and human eyes to certain wavelengths of light. Also, the limiting magnitude of the maps correlates closely with what binoculars can see, not what the human eye can see. Consequently, sometimes the sheer overload of stars and objects visible on the map can be confusing.

All 88 constellations are covered, some on several photographs. Because each map covers such a large area of the sky, many of the deep sky objects noted in the text are difficult to pick out. Also, it seems that for some maps the text was written for earlier or later exposures than what was actually published. This is evident after looking for variable stars mentioned as "bright" in the text that are not even present on the photograph!

Overall, a great work but no substitute for a "real" star atlas like Sky Atlas 2000. A bit expensive for its usefulness, but obviously a labor of love for the authors and great for casual naked-eye or binocular stargazing.

although it is attractively printed and bound, and the color photographs are nicely reproduced, this is not an interesting browse or serviceable reference. the text introductions to the sky image are pedestrian, and the listing of interesting objects is not helpful to find objects in the photographs or as an observing list for telescopes. the photographs are randomly orientated to fit the page format, with celestial north now at the top, or left, or right. worst of all, the positive plates (white stars on dark background) do not represent constant exposures or angular scales, so that the limiting magnitude, and the relationship between the size of the star image and the star's actual magnitude, vary from one plate to the next. facing each plate is a negative image star map (black stars on white paper) that is not a negative of the facing color plate, and therefore shows stars at a different (usually smaller) diameter, crops stars differently and shows all faint stars as an undifferentiated scatter of barely visible dots, making it very difficult to find the same star in the negative and color plates. almost none of the deep sky objects appear in either image, and are represented in the negative plate by icons. i'd pass on this one and get the forthcoming cambridge photographic atlas instead.

This was a great idea-- a book of photographic maps covering the entire sky. I purchased my copy from another website for much less than it was sold here.

The book could have been improved if it had closeup maps enlarging parts of the sky which contain many objects-- even individual constellations such as Cygnus, Orion, Sagitarius, and Virgo, which contain many galaxies, clusters, and other objects of interest to the observer. The wide field photos simply can't show everything of what the sky has to offer.

Still, this is a unique atlas and deserves a place in every amateur astronomer's library. It is the perhaps the only photographic atlas now available which shows many of the stars visible to the naked eye and in binoculars.