Summer Stargazing: A Practical Guide for Recreational Astronomers [Hardcover]

Terence Dickinson (Author)

Book Description

Age Level: 10 and up | Grade Level: 5 and up

An abundantly illustrated guide to the year's best stargazing season.

"Summer brings with it fine stargazing weather; it also happens to be the time of the year when our galaxy, the Milky Way, arches high across the sky."
-- Terence Dickinson

The cool, clear nights from May to October offer astronomers the best opportunities for stargazing. Few sights in nature can compare with the splendor of a dazzling star-filled sky.

Summer Stargazing captures the grandeur of the universe with down-to-earth simplicity. All that is needed is a reasonably dark night sky, a pair of binoculars or a simple telescope, and this book.

The book features everything else the amateur astronomer needs, including easy-to-use color star charts that cover the entire North American sky for one year and photographic-quality charts for this main stargazing season.

With Summer Stargazing, astronomers can delve into the majesty of the starry night to explore:

• Planets of the Solar System
• Galaxies
• Remote star-forming nebulas
• Glittering star dusters and more.

Helpful advice is given for safely viewing special phenomena such as eclipses and auroras.

Summer Stargazing is both a stargazing guide and a pictorial celebration of the summer night sky.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Gr. 6^-10. Dickinson, editor of SkyNews magazine and author of Exploring the Night Sky (1987), offers an informative, useful, and beautiful guide to observing the summer night sky above North America. Illustrated with charts, many full-color photographs, including excellent ones by the author, this large-format book features succinct, readable discussions of topics such as binoculars, telescopes, observation sites, moon watching, stargazing, comets, auroras, eclipses, meteor showers, and identifying constellations. Beyond the information provided, the book's most useful feature is its presentation of sky charts. In a series of spreads, seven segments of the night sky are shown with duplicate photos on facing pages. The left-hand page shows a star-studded section of the night sky. On the right page, the same section of sky (somewhat lighter to facilitate labeling) appears with the constellations delineated by connect-the-dot lines and the major stars and star groups labeled. Featuring charts for early summer as well as late summer and succinct discussions of sky sights and phenomena, this is precise, readable, and handsomely produced. Carolyn Phelan

Review

An unusually attractive and straightforward introduction to the heavens (Scientific American )

An informative, useful, and beautiful guide to observing the summer night sky above North America. (Carolyn Phelan Booklist )

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 10 and up
  
• Hardcover: 64 pages
• Publisher: Firefly Books (April 2, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1552090140
• ISBN-13: 978-1552090145
• Product Dimensions: 11.3 x 8.8 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,415,158 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent Guide for kids and adults., April 23, 1998

By 

Pam Stratton ([e-mail]) (Tacoma, Washington) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Summer Stargazing: A Practical Guide for Recreational Astronomers (Hardcover)

This is an excellent guide to the night sky. It is great for kids and adults alike. I especially like the use of actual photos of the sky with and without diagrams of the constellations (not just charts or drawings.) This makes it much easier to find them in the sky.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Nice Pictures but too little material., January 10, 1999

By 

Cirrus1500 - See all my reviews

This review is from: Summer Stargazing: A Practical Guide for Recreational Astronomers (Hardcover)

This book is a handy book with nice pictures for starters . There should be more materials than these as the pages are filled with more pictures than words and too little explainations. There are too little detail or advice or tips said about stargazing as the main subject. Conslusion: Good, but should contain about 50% more materials and advices/details.

5.0 out of 5 stars Very helpful when you have a very dark, clear sky, June 17, 2008

By 

Stardazer (Greensboro, NC United States) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Summer Stargazing: A Practical Guide for Recreational Astronomers (Hardcover)

Like many of you, I've long grown accustomed to diminished observing under a light polluted night sky. Sure, I can usually trace the major constellations and still find the best and brightest Messier objects. Yet, I hadn't realized my viewing deficiency until I had the benefit of an exceptionally dark night sky, far from city lights. There, I was lost, overwhelmed by a stellar grandeur that obliterated my limited sense of what I thought was there. I went scurrying for works that would come to my rescue. Few did, even the elaborate observing guides I had with me.

I found this one at the Air & Space Museum. Wow! For me, the price is worth it for just the wide field star images on pages 24-47. Even more so, the "close-up" photo swaths on pages 38, 40 and 44 I have turned to time and again for revealing deep sky treasures in the context of their placement in the Summer Triangle, and the richness of the Scorpius and Saggitarius regions.

If you have the occasional privilige to look into a truly dark summer night sky, this work can be your faithful seeing eye dog. I carry it with me along with my higher priced observing encyclopedias to keep me mindful of all that is there in the spendid Mily Way.

The balance of the book is helpful more for begininners and an excellent introduction for those who want to sample observing the summer night sky. Be aware that planetary positions are only through the year 2010 (I've never used that section anyway). But, even for this guy who owns an 8" scope, I won't be without "Summer Stargazing" under dark summmer sky observing. I pack it right along with several of the deep sky observing tomes each summer.