Observer's Sky Atlas: The 500 Best Deep-Sky Objects With Charts and Images

Really nice book for a good price. There are nicer books of course, but they are way out of my acceptable price range. This is a nice, informative book, with all (and more)of the information I need. Great pictures and it works just like my moon atlas, reference the map in the cover and go to the specific page for that object. Hardback and nice smooth pages.

I've been an amateur astronomer and telescope maker since childhood, and am normally pretty skeptical about night sky observing books, which tend to be pitched at a novice level, and filled with diffuse and general info that I know cold. I received a flyer featuring this and three other books at Stellafane last week, and while I could quickly rule out three of the four, this one seemed worth a preview on Amazon, and what I saw convinced me to give it a try. It arrived yesterday, and I have to say that I am really impressed, and will be using this observing atlas regularly. It has an incredible amount of information, arranged in a clever and highly organized manner. Lumping globulars, open clusters, galaxies, and actual nebulae all together under one "nebula" category is a bit odd, but these are in fact properly sub-categorized by number. It takes a little while to decode the dense info that is served up, but explanatory pages just before the core set of "star charts" do a good job of this, and once you are up to speed on the pattern, you have a lot of info at your disposal. Having this all in a single compact volume makes it more likely to be put to use at the telescope, where more verbose multi-volume approaches stay put on the shelf. I think that the author has done a great job, providing the observing community with a valuable new resource.

Quite comprehensive. All you need

I picked this book up 6 months ago and now use it every session of astrophotography. Sure the online spots like stellarium show you the night sky but this book is the goto book if you are looking for the best way to find your targets whether you have a goto scope or manual scope. I have found many of my target objects for the night that the goto couldn't seem to lock on using this atlas. I have had many atlases over the years from Burnham's celestial handbooks to many other sky atlases but never with every bit of information at your finger tips without having to sit there and read 30mins to find what your looking for. I highly recommend the Sky Atlas for finding those elusive objects in the night sky.

Bought this as a gift for someone. They had told me about an old school star map they bought at Cape Hatters years and years ago. It was spiral, like a notebook, and you could write on it and wipe it off. I looked and looked and could not find it. After reading reviews on probably 100 different books, I selected this as the gift. The gift went over great, we spent hours looking at it upon opening. It’s loaded with info for all. The recipient has been gazing at stars for years, through telescopes and binoculars or just standing out in the dark. Me not so much, I’ve been around telescope probably more than the average person, can point out a few things by eye, but that’s about it. The book was good for both of us, had stuff she understood but broke stuff down to where I could understand. I can see why they say good for all stargazers

In its fourth edition, splendidly produced by Firefly Books, Erich Karkoshka's Observer's Sky Atlas is the one indispensable guide to deep sky observing. It is one step beyond the following brilliant guides: Nightwatch, Fifth Edition by Terence Dickinson with Ken Hewitt-White; Turn Left at Orion, Fourth Edition, by Guy Consolmagno and Dan M. Davis; and Star-Hopping for Backyard Astronomers, First Edition, by Alan M. MacRobert. These books (and others) get you started. They prepare you for this book, which is aimed at deep sky observing.What sets this guide apart is the degree of its organization. Your journey begins on the inside front cover, which depicts the best times to observe each region of the sky. Select Leo, which is region E11; it is best placed for viewing in April. Navigate to E11, which occurs in order of the regions, on pages 74-75. You observe along the top photographs of bright objects in Leo.On the left page are Leo's coordinates, its broad location among nearby constellations, the distance of its main stars from earth, its deep sky objects ('Nebulas'), its most notable stars, including double and variable stars. This gives you tabular information that is actionable information for the telescopic obsever. One curious feature is the domino next to each object: the more dots in the domino, the more easily seen is that object.On right page middle is a map of Leo showing locations of the main objects. Below this map is a lozenge shaped closeup of the objects. These closeups point out the essentially clumpy nature of deep sky observing. The maps are essential for effective seeing at the telescope's eyepiece.Throughout the book is an emphasis on stellar distances, a situation made much less uncertain for nearby stars by the launch of the Hipparchos satellite in 1997 and the Gaia satellite in 2016. We know the distances of local stars with much more certainty than we did 30 years ago thanks to these satellites.I don't know about you, but the pleasure that I, a mortal being, get from the contemplation of the long-lasting universe is increased considerably by knowledge of the sky while observing. The Observer's Sky Atlas delivers this knowledge as never before.

I recently received this book through Amazon in great shape upon delivery. I will have to study the book in it's entirety since I'm just getting into Astrophotography. The book has some good information in it. Well worth the price I feel.

Excellent book ☺️

I First bought this Author's 'Observer's Star Atlas' around 25 years ago.I didn't know a single Constellation then.Now I stumble on to the latest greatest book of Erich's and find a new Glossy Updated Version of the same book. There's not many books that can't be improved but this might be one of them.I've now seen all the Northern Constellations and observed Deep Sky objects such as The Veil Nebula through big Telescopes and this book covers them all. I can't wait to get back under clear skies with a Big Refractor and this book! I might even have a go at finding 3C273 The most exotic object visible in amateur telescopes - The 60 M light year distant Quasar is charted in this book once more & I'm so glad it's till here now that I might actually stand a chance of finding it. Superb!

Good photo's and maps with instructions on how to use it to find the objects you want to find

El que este escrito en inglés no debería ser un impedimento para su uso. La información está organizada de forma inteligente, resultando muy practica para la observación del cielo.Para los que no están familiarizados con el cielo nocturno lo pueden combinar con un atlas del cielo digital (Stellarium o Cartes du Ciel).Merece la pena.

I didn't quite know how to catorgeries this atlas since it's ostensibly about 500 deep sky objects curated by the author, and I already own several atlases and handbooks with far more DSO's...so why would I buy it.Simply put, it is absolutely brilliant.It is idiosincratic and follows none of the usual conventions of astronomy charts and books, but conveys the information in the most incredible graphic fashion.It starts with 17 pages of pertinent information about the construction of the atlas which you need to read in detail to get the most from it.Then follows over 100 pages of all-sky charts, which are not only highly detailed on their own but inlaid with very precise finder charts, detailed images and thumbnail visual images of various DSO's.Finally there is a very comprehensive index of DSO's, star names with magnitude and visual colour, oppositions, meteor showers and even maps of the Milky Way.As said, it is specific to the DSO's described, but also far more than that, I have never come across any book (on any subject) that conveys so much information per square inch of page surface than this.It is quite, quite brilliant, I'm glad I own a copy.

Excellent livre et très instructif , très complet , messier , cadwell , ngc