Customer Reviews

Star Ware: The Amateur Astronomer's Ultimate Guide to Choosing, Buying, and Using Telescopes and Accessories

5 star:		(27)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

As an intermediate/advanced amateur astronomer, I purchased Star Ware primarily as a reference tool for optical calculations and starting astrophotography. Well, I wound up reading the book from cover to cover in about two days, and I must say it is a wonderful book for all levels of viewers. It covers everything from selecting equipment and observing sites, to long exposure astrophotography and do-it-yourself projects. The author imparts his knowledge in a no-nonsense way that allows the reader to fully understand the concepts of all topics discussed.

If you are just beginning and have not yet purchased a telescope (or binoculars), or are fairly new to astronomy and looking for additional equipment or accessories, PLEASE READ THIS BOOK FIRST! It will help you to become a very informed consumer, teach you to evaluate your observing site(s), and help determine your overall situation with respect to astronomy. For the price of $19.95, the book could save you hundreds (or thousands) of dollars in the long-run. Moreover, you will have a great reference to use throughout your observing career.

Whether the reader is interested in planetary work or deep-sky viewing, Star Ware gives great techniques and tips for viewing everything from our own star to the extra-galactic domain. This book helps the beginner to select the proper equipment for starting out, and also guides the more advanced observer in choosing accessories for enhancing equipment performance for specific areas of astronomy. In addition, the book delves into the complex science and art of astrophotography, with helpful suggestions from the author about getting started and basic methods.

A very nice part of this book is the appendix section, detailing out equipment, accessories, manufacturers, etc. It also contains the entire Messier Catalog in table form, complete with R.A. and Dec. coordinates. In short, Star Ware is a superb text that belongs on the shelf of every amateur astronomer.

There are a few books no amateur astronomer should be without. One is Peterson's Field Guide to the Stars and Planets, which packs more useful information into a smaller package than any other book I know of. A second is The Backyard Astronomer's Guide by Dickinson & Dyer, which covers the basics of the hobby in a more expansive, descriptive format.

A third member of this short list has recently been republished in a new edition: Star Ware, Second Edition (The Amateur Astronomer's Ultimate Guide to Choosing, Buying, and Using Telescopes and Accessories) by Philip S. Harrington, 1998 John Wiley & Sons. Star Ware is aimed mostly at beginners, teaching in a lively and informal style the basics of how telescopes work and how to use them, but there is a fair amount of information of interest to advanced amateurs as well.

The book begins with two chapters about telescope optics and different types of telescopes, with something of the history of telescopes along the way. Chapter 3 covers the pros and cons of each type in some detail, ending with a quiz where you add the point values of your answers to show what type you should buy - fun, as long as you don't take it too seriously. Chapter 4 is a still more detailed look at the offerings of different manufacturers, again sorted by type. Phil goes easy on the major manufacturers, judging from some of the tales of woe I've heard; but the treatment is fair and useful. Chapter 5 compares the myriad eyepieces available to go with these scopes. Both these chapters have appendices where the information is laid out in convenient tables.

Chapter 6 covers finders and filters, other books and software, cameras and CCD's. One thing I would have appreciated would be a similar appendix covering all the competing software packages, what they do well and which was the best for each purpose. As I wrote two months ago, I have purchased a number of these packages and started to evaluate them; maybe I need to write this comparison myself.

Chapter 7 was the most interesting to me - a description of projects you can make, from a collimation tool to a video camera bracket to a binocular chair - the latter I want to get started on Real Soon Now. `Till Death Do You Part' is on care of your scope, and repeats sage advice against unnecessary cleaning, as well as how to collimate your optics.

The last and longest chapter, `It's Time to Solo!', covers the targets to point your scope at (moon, planets, comets, sun, deep-sky), a description of a few dozen of the best deep-sky objects, and a brief introduction to astrophotography. This will be of less interest to advanced amateurs, who probably have more detailed sources of this type of information. One might question why to include this in a book about equipment, but it probably does make it more useful for the beginner who may buy only this book.

Parts of the book overlap with the Dickinson & Dyer book mentioned above, but the treatment of telescopes and eyepieces is much more detailed. Overall, a fine book, highly recommended for a beginning amateur, and recommended for an advanced amateur looking to buy a new scope or eyepiece.

I've read 'em all and Star Ware is, without a doubt, the single best book about equipment for the amateur astonomer ever written. The author has clearly done a tremendous amount of research to cover just about every conceivable piece of equipment out there. And, best of all, he discusses pros and cons evenly, without bias, and with a sense of humor that holds the interest of even non-astronomer types.

If you are thinking about buying a telescope or other piece of astronomical equipment, the price of this book could save you hundreds. And, in the long run, you will end up knowing more about what to buy and how to use it, thanks all to this book.

Bravo!

Some reviewer gave this informative book 2 out of 5 stars, because the information wasn't presented in an easy to view graph, unfortunate.

I liked the book for its honesty. The astonomy magazines don't run eyepiece tests often--if at all--and when they actually do a review of equipment the conclusion is frequently...weak. No guts, nothing is clear, just lame jokes about comparing Chevy's or Fords.

Not in this book.

He tells you how it is. Without a doubt, review this book before investing in equipment.

Contains all the information you will need to make an educated choice when buying a telescope for the first time. Expands into many supplemental areas with practical examples throughout. I used this book as my primary source of information prior to buying my scope - absolutely no regrets. The book is very easy to use and follow. It is comprehensive, but written in a language anyone can understand. The included comparisons and examples are extremely helpful.

This is the only book I've ever read. I can say with ease and honesty that it is flawless. I knew next to nothing about observing with a telescope, let alone how to choose the right one for myself. The Author always starts a topic at the absolute beginning and then proceeds slowly, but steadily, untill everything is covered. It wouldn't be fair to call this an easy-to-read book, but scientific books does not get much easier to read than this. The conclusion must be, that if you are looking for a book about Amateur astronomy or simply how to choose the right telescope or equipment, than stop looking! Don't waste the time or your money on other books! This is simply all there is to say about astronomy.

Philip S. Harrington's Star Ware is one of the best guides to choose, buy and use telescopes and accesories for observing the nightsky.With many charts, illustrations, tables and black and white photographs, this book is a real help in order to setup and test your astronomical equipment. In ten well written chapters, the book deals with topics such as aperture, focal lenght, focal ratio, magnification and resolving power. It also explains the different types of telescopes (reflectors, refractors, etc) comparing different brands of telescopes and eyepieces, giving useful tips on observing and astrophotography. Useful appendices, updated in this second edition, will give the reader information about telescope dealers, distributors and manufacturers, in the United States, the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Australia. Definitively, this is one of the best books of its kind and a must for amateur astronomers who own or want to buy a telescope.

Great book for astronomical hardware. I particularly loved the lot of telescope reviews.

I found many of the projects interesting and built a couple of the observers chairs as well as a couple of the servo focusers. It is full of information and I find myself going back to it quite often.

I purchased the first addition of this book 3 years ago along with a number of other astronomy titles, as I was just getting started in the hobby. Harrington's book is useful to both the beginner and advanced amature astronomer. He provides detailed and up to date reviews of a wide variety of products available on the market today. He also provides a good deal of information that enables one to focus on the type of equipment that will best meet their needs. I recently purchased this new addition, and found it to be very useful in keeping abreast of what is new in the marketplace. Of all the astronomy books I've purchased, this along with "The Backyard Astronomer" are the most useful.