Astronomy Log

Practical Astronomy is a straight forward guide to the hobby of astronomy. If you are a beginner to astronomy then this is a perfect book to pick up and read.

The book begins by introducing you to astronomy and teaching you the night’s sky and how to guide yourself about.  There is also a chapter on choosing the right astronomy equipment for you, including information on various telescope types. Practical astronomy ends the first section entitled “Introducing Astronomy” by advising you on how to record your observations via cameras and web cams. This section of the book also contains a section containing star charts.

The second part of Practical Astronomy works through “Exploring the Sky” and the book gives a chapter to viewing the moon, sun, observing planets, outer planets, the stars and deep sky objects.

Each chapter takes you through each type of object with full colour images, tables and diagrams.  This type of book is perfect for the beginner as it gives the reader an insight into the hobby of astronomy as most areas of amateur astronomy are covered. There are also star charts and moon maps included as well as a small glossary and resources list.

Practical Astronomy by Storm Dunlop is available at Amazon

Stargazing with Binoculars with Robin Scagell and David Frydman

Stargazing with Binoculars is the latest book from Philip’s (as of Spring 2008). Using binoculars is a great way to begin your astronomy hobby before you go out and spend money on a telescope, especially now that you can buy some powerful binoculars for little money. I use a pair of binoculars myself as they are quick and easy to pick up and use, I think everybody should have a pair.

So it is about time we saw a book on astronomy with binoculars. The book does contain in-depth information on the various types of binoculars and what to look for when purchasing a pair. This includes the various models, using tripods and how to attach the binoculars with an L bracket, this information is not at the beginning of the book but actually at the back of the book.

The book also covers how to look after your binoculars and how to observe the sun with them. Stargazing with binoculars actually begins by introducing you to the night’s sky and how to find your way round it.

There is an interesting chapter entitled “The binocular observer’s year” which tells you what the best sights are to look out for month by month during the year.

The book also contains a chapter on the solar system which gives readers a general overview of the night’s sky and the hobby of astronomy.

Stargazing with binoculars is a great book as it contains some really nice colour images of the night’s sky, which are all up to date. If you are interested in astronomy and want to buy a pair of binoculars or if you already own a pair but want to get outside to look at the night’s sky, then buy this book.

Stargazing with Binoculars is available from Amazon

 The Brightest Stars book is all about twenty-one of the brightest stars visible from Earth. The Brightest Stars instructs you how to find the stars and the best way to see them.

Each section about each star contains information about the history of the star and legends that are connected with each star. There are also information on star distances, mass and composition. The book also includes star charts.

The Brightest Stars begins with a chapter on stars in the sky which asks the question How Bright is Bright? There is also information on the locations and yearly motions and names of the stars. The final part is about how to see stars better when looking at the skies, using your eyes and telescopes.

Chapter two is entitled Stars in the Universe which includes parts, structure, distances, and motions of stars in the universe, as well as the varieties of stars and the lives and death of stars.

The following stars are contained within the book; Sirius, Canopus, Alpha Centauri, Arcturus, Vega, Capella, Rigel, Procyon, Achernar, Betelgeuse, Beta Centauri, Alpha Crucis, Altair, Aldebaran, Spica, Antares, Pollux, Fomalhaut, Beta Crucis, Deneb and Regulus.

There are six appendices in total and a glossary in the book; with the appendices you get the positions of the stars via RA and Dec co-ordinates as well as magnitude measurements. You also get the masses of the stars and a list of the 200 brightest stars. There are also many other star information tables in the appendices.

The Brightest Stars is a great book if you want to learn a lot more about stars (obviously), the books images are in black and white though but it is nice that each star is given it’s own section which makes the book easier to read.

The Brightest Stars book can be ordered now from Amazon

Turn Left at Orion has become a very famous book, one which has had lots of positive reviews on book sites such as Amazon and other astronomy web sites, so it was good to get hold of a copy to see what this book is all about.

Turn Left at Orion is really about how to find 100 objects in the night sky using binoculars or a small telescope, the book cover actually mentions using a 50-70mm aperture telescope.

This version of the book is the seventh printed edition from 2007 and all data in this book has been updated to the year 2011. The start of the book tells you the basics about viewing the night’s sky and how to use the book.

The moon is mentioned in this book in sections of the lunar cycle with each page giving you an image of the view of the moon you will see in the sky and the main areas to look for. There is then a list of worldwide lunar eclipse dates.

Turn Left at Orion also contains details on all the planets with a couple of pages for each, telling you what to look out for, and how to find the planets.

The main parts of the book are given over to looking at objects in the sky. There are four main sections which are given over to each season of the year, and what you can find in the sky.

Each page tells you what the conditions need to be like to see the object, the eyepiece you will need to use and in what months you can view the object. There are also symbols telling you if you can see the object with binoculars or a telescope.

The page then tells you where to look in the sky, and what you need to find in your finder scope before you view the object in the telescope.  There are then comments on the object and information on what you are actually looking at.

At the rear of the book is a chapter on how to run a telescope, detailing the basics of different type of telescope and how to use your telescope and get the best out of it, by learning how to use your telescope mount, when to observe and to remember to cool down the telescope as well as how to store and maintain your telescope.

There is also a small two page glossary and a full table of objects that are described in the book, which provides you information on the RA and Dec positions, the type of object, what type of sky it needs to be to see the object, and which eyepiece to use.

There is a small section on objects in the Southern Hemisphere, useful if you go on holiday to the Southern Hemisphere you will be able to recognise objects not visible in the Northern Hemisphere.

Overall Turn Left at Orion does appear to be a very useful book for beginners and is suitable for all ages.  I am sure Turn Left at Orion will help you but I think that some colour photos of the night sky could help or by displaying the main stars joined up in constellations can sometimes also help or give a wider view of the nights sky in each image could have helped to direct people to home in on the location they need to be looking.

Although finding objects in the sky is never easy and it is really easy to give up, but if you stick with it, finding objects can be really rewarding, all you have to do is learn one constellation a night and you will soon get know lots of objects in the night sky.

Turn Left at Orion can be purchased from Amazon now.

How to Use a Computerised Telescope introduces topics which are common to all computerised telescopes, but the book mainly covers the Meade ETX, LX200 and Celestron Nexstar ranges.

How to Use a Computerised Telescope begins by telling you about how the sky moves and how computerised telescopes track the stars in altazimuth and equatorial modes. It also includes details about the on-board GPS on the telescope and how to steady telescope mounts, wedges, and permanent mounts and how to best align a telescope. There is also a good section on factors that can affect pointing accuracy.
 
There is a whole chapter given over equatorial mounts and wedges and how to align the telescope using both methods.

The 5th chapter covers telescope optics and the different kinds of telescope as well as a useful section on how to collimate an SCT or Newtonian telescope.

Chapter 6 covers everything about eyepieces, including the different types such as Plossl, Radian, Kellner, Nagler and more. There is also information on power formulas and details on Barlow lenses, focal reducers, filters, sun filters and finders.

Chapter 7 is all about astrophotography and it tells you about the equipment you can purchase and how to attach your camera to the telescope either by piggybacking, prime focus, afocal and positive projection. There is also information on CCD cameras, webcams, and how to perform effective focusing.
 
Chapter 8 is all about troubleshooting, and it lists lots of problems you may come across and possible solutions for them.

The final three chapters are then given over to information about three main telescopes, these are the Meade LX200, Celestron Nexstar 5 and 8 and finally the Meade ETX and LX90 ranges.

These chapters carry a lot of information about each telescope such as about the menu options available on each handset and what the commands actually do.  There are also some wiring diagram on how to make serial and USB cables for the LX200 and Nexstar telescopes.
 
At around 225 pages there is a lot of information in this book, especially applicable if you have a Meade LX200, ETX or Celestron Nexstar telescope.  I learnt a lot about how to use my LX200 from this book and How to Use a Computerised Telescope is also a great book to have and read if you did not like or understand the manufacturers manual that accompanied your telescope.

How To Use a Computerised Telescope is available to buy here

Digital Astrophotography is a very clear, up to date and concise book on how to accomplish digital astrophotography.  The book details four main ways to take images, either via a digital compact camera, a webcam, with an SLR/DSLR or via a CCD camera.

It was refreshing to read a book which was up to date with some really nice colour screenshots and image included.  Most of the other books on astrophotography have not been updated, as they only discussed using either early webcams or manual SLR cameras.

Each chapter of Digital Astrophotography covers digital compact cameras, SLR cameras, webcams and CCD imagers. In each chapter you get information on the type of equipment, what to look out if you are considering a purchase, and how much you will likely pay (in dollars) for the equipment. Finally there is a table detailing the advantages and disadvantages of each piece of equipment.

Each piece of equipment is then covered in detail, including how to set up your piece of imaging equipment and how to take images, and how to process them. For example in the webcam chapter you are instructed how to set up and use the Philips SPC900 webcam and how to use VLounge, Registax software and Photoshop in order to obtain your finished images.

The final part of the book takes you through using the software program AstroArt to manipulate your astrophotography images. There is also a website to accompany the book which contains images you can download to practice on and follow the examples with.
 
Overall Digital Astrophotography by Stefan Seip is a brilliant book and one I read cover to cover.  If you are after a beginner’s type book about digital astrophotography and you want to learn how to image using a compact camera, webcam, DSLR or CCD imager then I can recommend this book.

Digital Astrophotography is available to buy here

Deep Sky Observer’s Guide is an astronomy pocket book by Philip’s covering all of the major deep sky targets.

The book begins with an introduction to the astronomy area of deep sky objects, and an introduction to the basics of sky watching and the sorts of equipment that can be used, including binoculars and various telescopes.

The book also tells you where and when to observe, as well as about sketching and how to plan a nights observing.  Over three quarters of the book is given over to listing all the main deep sky objects which can be observed. 

Each deep sky object entry gives a description of the object together with RA and Dec positions and a note of where you can find the object on the sky maps at the back of the book. The book also contains some colour images of the objects.

The rear of the book contains a chapter on the history of deep sky observing including descriptions about the early observers. The book also contains star charts and maps as well as summary lists of the deep sky objects, their magnitude, what page in the book they are on and what month of the year is the best for viewing them.

Overall, Deep Sky Observer’s Guide is a great little book if you are interested in deep sky targets and want to be able to draw up a list of objects to observe and where to locate them in the nights sky and when via the sky maps and summary lists.

Deep Sky Observer’s Guide is available from Amazon

The Philip’s Sun Observer’s Guide is written by Pam Spence and is one of Philip’s pocket type astronomy books. This is the first solar book I have read, I am interested in solar observation as I it allows me to use my telescope in the day as well as just at night. 

The book first of all describes the structure of the sun including information on sunspots and solar winds.  There are then chapters on the types of instruments to use to observe the sun, including telescopes, pinhole cameras and filters.

How to observe the sun, walks you through how to safely view the sun with your telescope or binoculars by making homemade projections systems. 

A good section of the middle of the book is given over to telling you how to make observations and record the observations as well as how to analyse your findings.

As you would expect there is a chapter on solar eclipses and the book describes the theory behind the various types of solar eclipse.  There is also a small section on taking images of the sun, unfortunately it only talks about traditional SLR cameras, and not digital cameras, but it does provide some useful information on the types of shutter speed to use at various ISO levels and focal ratios dependent on the type of eclipse you are imaging.

The last section of the book tells you about the professional solar astronomy that is being conducted around the world. At the rear of the book is a useful list of past, present and future dates of eclipses and what you will see in differing parts of the world. 

Overall the Sun Observer’s Guide is a great little book, with some great images, and it provides the reader with a good all round knowledge of the sun and how to view it.  It would have been nice to see a bit more content on imaging the sun and various filters that could be used with a scope, but this book was never meant to go into that greater detail, but instead give the reader a good all round knowledge of the sun, which it does admirably.

This is the second edition of Michael Covington’s Astrophotography for the amateur book.  It is nice to find a book solely on astrophotography, as that’s what interests me most, I always like to come in from the cold with some images or video to work on.

Although the title of the book is astrophotography for the amateur, I did find this book to be quite in depth and it does include non-beginner topics such as exposure tables, and lots of mathematical equations. The book does not include many colour images, only in a section in the centre of the book.

Astrophotography for the amateur is broken down into four main sections; simple techniques, advanced techniques, photographic technology and digital imaging.

The first section takes you through photographing stars without a telescope, and how to shoot eclipses, the moon, comets and meteors.

The second section on advanced techniques takes you through performing prime focus photography, which is where you connect the camera directly to the telescope.  This section also discusses dealing with tracking, vibration, unsteady air, dew and more. This section finishes off detailing piggy backing your camera on your telescope, building and using a barn door tracker, using lenses, dealing with light pollution and how to get the best polar alignment.

The third section entitled photographic technology covers using traditional SLR cameras, there is no mention of digital cameras in this section.  This section does include everything you wanted to know about SLR cameras though, such as about film, various cameras and developing and processing your shots.

The final section is all about digital imaging, including file compression, how to manipulate colour, combining images, printing, smoothing, sharpening, working with histograms and all about CCD imaging.  The CCD section talks about how CCD works, aiming and focusing, exposures and focal lengths and more.

Astrophotography for the amateur also includes six appendices, such as exposure tables, plans for an electronic drive corrector and about photographic filters as well as an appendix on mathematical analysis of polar-axis misalignment.

So as you can tell there is a lot of content in this book, and it covers lots of areas of astrophotography and it packs in a lot of information. Overall a very good book on astrophotography, just a shame that DSLR cameras were not covered in any detail, perhaps in the next edition the SLR section will be changed to a DSLR section.

Buy Astrophotography for the Amateur Book

Philip’s Atlas of the Universe by Patrick Moore is now in its sixth edition. The Atlas of the Universe is quite a big book; it’s a hardcover book and is a full size type coffee table book.  The full colour photographs, images and diagrams are absolutely breath taking, with pictures from space missions and images of planets, nebulae, constellations and more.

Atlas of the Universe is divided into seven sections, these are “Exploring the Universe”, which covers the history of astronomy and space exploration and the latest results from the Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes.

“The Solar System” chapter contains information on everything in our solar system including the earth and the planets, with images and maps of the planets from visiting spacecraft including the Cassini probe, the Mars Express and the Spirit and Opportunity rovers.

“The Sun” chapter covers visible phenomena, from sunspots to solar eclipses including images from the SOHO and TRACE spacecrafts.

“The Stars” chapter covers nebulae, supernovae, black holes, stellar clusters with images from the VLT or Very Large Telescope.

“Into the Universe” includes the structure of the Universe, our Galaxy, quasers.  It also discusses the possibilities of extraterrestrial life.

Towards the rear of the book there are more practical astronomy chapters, including Star Maps, a complete atlas of the constellations (northern and southern hemisphere) stretched across 22 maps.  There are also tables accompanying the maps which give co-ordinates, magnitudes and other data.

The final chapters contain beginner’s guides which teach beginners such basics as how to use a planisphere and an introduction to binoculars and telescopes.  There are sections on digital imaging with cameras and CCD cameras. The final section covers having an observatory.  Atlas of the Universe ends with a 25 page glossary which includes colour diagrams.

Overall The Atlas of the Universe is a magical book, if you don’t like reading these types of general astronomy books, and then just look at the images, they are amazing. I could imagine this book to be a brilliant gift for the avid astronomer or for any child who is studying astronomy or has a school project to complete.

Atlas of the Universe is available from Amazon