Book Reviews Part 3

Deep Sky Wonders By Sue French

This is yet another book destined to go down history as one of the compediums that is a must have for deep sky aficionados. As the title suggest, this book is a collection of articles from the deep sky column in the Sky and Telescope  magazine. You must be wondering why this book shares the same name as another Sky and Telescope publication of the same moniker. The reasons for this is simple, this book is the modern version of its older counterpart. The column used to be penned by none other than Walter "Scotty" Houston. When he passed on, the heavy burden of writing this column came to fall on the shoulders of Sue French. Fortunately for us, Sue is just as eloquent and experienced as Scotty was. Her column is one of the reasons why I still read Sky and Telescope today. Her pieces are a mix of history, astrophysics and anecdotal notes from her own observing diary, as well as quotes from other astronomers. What I particularly like about her columns is that she uses scopes of different sizes, from small refractors to large dobsonians, so she has descriptions that can be used by observers of all levels. She also includes her own sketches of some of the objects in the article. This book is split into seasons and, unfortunately is printed on glossy paper and is more suitable as a coffee table book, rather than a field guide. It is also not very thick.

Visual Astronomy of the Deep Sky by Roger N Clarke

"Visual Astronomy of the Deep Sky"

One of the very hard to get classics for deep sky collectors, I recently chanced upon a reasonably priced copy on Astromart (I have seen this book go for over a $100!) and got it just in time for Christmas. The hard cover is a fairly nondescript yellow, with a black and white photo and sketch of M51. There is a reason why M51 was chosen as the cover DSO. There is a whole article on visual observing of M51, and the analysis of surface brightness versus optimum magnification for detection of minute details. This book also happens to read a whole lot like Stephen O'Meara's Deep Sky Companion Series. Indeed the format of this book is very similar to Stephen's works, with the focus mostly on visual deep sky observing and ferreting out minute details under different sky conditions and magnifications. The text is not as through as O'Meara's tomes as he does not delve into the astrophysics and lore as much. He also happened to do the bulk of his sketches from Hawaii! The meat and potatoes section of the book are the description and detailed sketches of 90 deep sky objects ranging from open clusters to galaxies and nebula. Some of the more famous objects are given star treatment, meaning they have more than one sketch to depict the effects of differing sky conditions (seeing and transparency) and magnification. Three examples of these include M42, M51 and The Veil Nebula in Cygnus. Overall a great book, and a must for collectors of all things deep sky!

Illustrated Guide to Astronomical Wonders by Robert Bruce Thompson

"Illustrated Guide to Astronomical Wonders"

I got this book because I enjoyed Robert's book entitled Astronomy Hacks so much. That book was an excellent book for tinkerer's as it was a compilation of hacks (or shortcuts) from a variety of sources that were directly applicable to astro related gizmos (i.e. improving the smoothness of the azimuth on dobsonian bases using washers fashioned from old CD's and milk jug cutouts!). The book reviewed here is like a hack of sorts, but for visual astronomers. It has a brief intro about equipment (i.e. telescopes, eyepieces, filters), but does not delve too deeply as this topic has already been covered in his previous book. Still what's presented here is sufficiently detailed for a newbie astronomer. What is presented in this book is a rather comprehensive selection of deep sky objects arranged by constellation. While there are no sketches in the book like a lot of the other deep sky guides, this book is very complete in terms of the number of objects covered and the visual description of what can be seen in each (with garden variety 50 mm binoculars, a 50 mm finder and a 10" dobsonian, Robert's scope of choice). In terms of maps, this book has the best I have seen by far for star hoppers. Deep maps are included in the book and the objects are segregated by constellation, a format I prefer over the grouping by season which some guidebooks seem to like. A table also accompanies each constellation with the data on the objects such as the magnitude, size, celestial coordinates. Due to the sheer volume of objects, this is a rather thick book. Pros is that is is printed on rather light paper so the softcover book is rather light in comparison to some of the other books. Cons there are no color pics (but then again the black and white pics are closer to what you might actually see through your eyepiece!) and the paper is not glossy and therefore is not very suitable to be used out in the field. A great book for planning your observations!

The Urban Astronomer's Guide by Rod Mollise

"The Urban Astronomers Guide"

If the name sounds familliar, it is because this book is written by none other than Old Uncle Rod, SCT aficionado and frequent contributor to astronomy magazines. Uncle Rod also writes a weekly blog (updated every Sunday and not to be missed as his writing style is very whimsical and engaging!) and  also another book on SCT's. Here he gives us the run down on what is visible from light polluted skies, with the objects split based on the seasons. Yes urban astronomy is alive and yes you can spot quite a number of deep sky objects from your light polluted playground, quite the contrary to what most people believe! Most city and suburb bound astronomers resort to observing only double stars, open clusters and inner solar system objects. This greatly limits the number of objects to scrutinize. Uncle Rod highlight the objects visible from less than pure skies. As Uncle Rod puts it, better to observe more frequently than to hold out for that one dark sky weekend a month, that sometimes does not even materialize due to the vagaries of the weather. The convenience of being able to stroll outside, set up a scope and just observe cannot be beat. Uncle Rod encourages you to even try some grab and go astronomy on weekday nights, something that is just not possible if you had to drive an hour or more to get to the site. That way you get out more and observe more. Uncle Rod outlines what you need for a successful observing session in the suburbs. I have owned three books now on urban observing, one from Sky and Telescope and this book is by far the most comprehensive of the three. Highly recommended for urban dwellers who don't have the luxury of traveling to darker sites, and for those looking to expand their observing to include backyard astronomy. Detailed notes are accompanied by at the eyepiece sketches from Uncle Rod. Highly recommended!