OF THE ROGER N. CLARK

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VISUAL ASTRONOMY OF THE DEEP SKY
APPENDIX A: RECOMMENDED BOOKS
are its heavy use of English constellation
names ("Serpent Holder" for Ophiuchus)
and Rey's charming but sometimes too elaborate
stick-figure constellation patterns. It has
all-sky maps individually drafted for each
month to reduce distortion.
The Night Sky by David Chandler (Sky Publishing
Corp., Cambridge, Mass., 1977) This
lO-inch-diameter planisphere reduces the
distortion of star patterns that affects most
planispheres. It has two sides: one minimizes
distortion north of the celestial equator, the
other south of it.
Astro-dome: A Three Dimensional Map oj the
Night Sky by Klaus Hunig (Sunstone Publications,
Cooperstown, NY, 1983). This is an
innovative cutout book from which a paper
sky-dome is constructed. The stars are
printed with phosphorescent paint to glow in
the dark. The dome shape keeps the constellations
from having to be distorted to fit
onto a flat piece of paper. It is quite large: 20
inches in diameter, giving the appearance of
a miniature planetarium. The cutout and
construction work is a full evening's task, and
the paper dome is too flimsy to stand heavy
use or breezy nights.
STAR ATLASES
A star atlas is a larger, more serious set of
charts than the simple maps for finding constellations.
Just as a mariner may run
aground without excellent sea charts, you
need accurate, detailed star charts to navigate
the skies. The better the charts, and the
fainter the stars they show, the more precisely
you will be able to locate a difficult object's
position with a telescope.
The most widely used general-purpose
atlas is Sky Atlas 2000. 0 by Wil Tirion (Sky
Pu blishing Corp., C am bridge, Mass., 1981).
As the name implies, its coordinate grid is
drawn for equinox 2000.0. Over 43 000 stars
to as faint as magnitude 8 are plotted on 26
charts. Only the deluxe edition is recommended:
the charts are wire bound inside a
cover and are more durable than the slightly
smaller, unbound charts of the black-andwhite
editions. In the deluxe edition each
chart is 12.5 by 17.5 inches, the 2500 deepsky
objects are color coded, and there is a
plastic coordinate-grid overlay fo r reading or
plotting accurate positions.
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Surpassing even this work is Tirion's late t
opus (with B.Rappaport and G. Lovi) , Ur:_
nometria 2000.0 (Willmann-Bell, Inc., Rich_
mond, Va., 1987 and 1988) . This atlas plots
332 000 stars to about magnitude 9.5, as well
as some 10 300 deep-sky objects including the
entire NGC. It consists of 473 black-and_
white charts, each about 6 by 8 inches, bound
in two hardback volumes covering the north_
ern and southern sky, respectively. The cartography
follows the style of Sky Atlas 2000.0
making the step up from it easy. The shee;
number of charts makes this no atlas for the
novice; you have to know the sky fairly well
not to get lost among them.
To improve their usefulness Appendix E, a
catalog of deep-sky objects, includes a list of
which chart to use to find a particular object.
To use Uranometria 2000.0 you will usually
need a more general atlas like Sky Atlas 2000.0
simply to locate where the Uranometria field is
in the sky. Trying to find which chart to use if
you have only an object's coordinates can
take quite a long time in the dark. The time
spent can be worth it because once you have
the right field area, the details on Uranometria
2000. 0 will virtually assure you that you are
pointing your telescope at the right place.
The most detailed (and expensive) atlases
are photographic: high-contrast copies of
actual photographs of the sky. These are for
the very advanced amateur, since they generally
omit star names, deep-sky object symbols,
constellation borders, and all the other
clarifications and conveniences at the mapmaker's
disposal. They show vast numbers of
stars, but deep-sky objects may or may not
have been recorded by the camera.
The lowest-price photographic atlas is
Photographic Star Atlas 1950. 0 (also called The
Falkau Atlas) by Hans Vehrenberg
(Treugesell-Verlag, Dusseldorf, 1972). It
covers the sky in 428 charts down to about
magnitude 13. Plastic overlays can be used to
determine a star's coordinates. No objects are
labelled. Thus the amateur must very carefully
plot any faint object to be sought. But
once it's plotted, the many stars can greatly
assist in locating it. The Photographic Star Atlas
costs about three times as much as the deluxe
Sky Atlas 2000.0.
Also published by Hans Vehrenberg is the
even larger and more detailed Atlas Stellarum
1950.0 (Treugesell-Verlag, Dusseldorf, 1970).
I
t IS
. twice the scale of the Photographic Star
I ·
Atl s and reaches stars at east a magmtu e
faiter. Its star images are smaller, rounder
and cleaner. The 486 charts are each 13 b f
d i l3
inches, but even so you may nee a magm ler
for the swarms of the very smallest stars. It
toO has no labels.
HANDBOOKS AND OBSERVING GUIDES
The Messier Album by John H. Mallas and
Evered Kreimer (Sky Publishing Corp.,
Cambridge, Mass., 216 pages, 1978, revised
1980). This is an observing guide to the 110
Messier objects. Evered Kreimer photographed
each one with his 12.5-inch reflector
and John Mallas made drawings of most with
a 4-inch refractor. I t's interesting to compare
Mallas' observations with those in this book.
Unfortunately he did not include the scale of
his drawings, or even a few reference stars, so
comparisons with photographs or other
drawings are often difficult.
Bumham's Celestial Handbook by Robert Burnham,
Jr. (Dover Publications, Inc., New
York, 2139 pages in three volumes, 1978).
This is a magnificent collection of facts and
observational notes on thousands of celestial
objects. It's an excellent companion to this
book and to any star atlas. There are over 600
black-and-white photographs but no drawings.
The descriptions of many objects include
pages of history and folklore, as well as
scientific facts and theories gleaned from the
literature up to the 1970s. The technical descriptions
in the book you are holding include
many newer scientific explanations, often
based on observations that were impossible
when Burnham wrote. Any "latest scientific
explanations" tend to become dated quickly,
but even so, the rich contents of Burnham's
Celestial Handbook guarantee that it will always
remain a classic.
Amateur Astronomer's Handbook by J.B. Sidgwick,
revised by James Muirden (Enslow
Publishers, Hillside, New Jersey, 586 pages,
4th edition, 1980) . This handbook from England
covers telescope construction, operation,
drives, eyepieces, spectroscopes, mIcrometers,
and many advanced topics, all in
great depth. Some sections are still outdated,
despite the recent revisions. For instance, the
chapter on eyepieces (or oculars as the Brit­
Ish call them) dwells on many that are no
d
longer in common use and cannot be purchased
anywhere in the United States of America.
But in general, this is still a valuable and
thorough treatment of astronomical instruments
and their use.
Chapter 3 of the fo urth edition has several
mistakes concerning magnification and apparent
image brightness. None of the concepts
presented in this book were discussed by
Sidgwick. For example, in Chapter 24 (page
427 of the fourth edition), Sidgwick says that
reducing the brightness (implied by a magnification
increase) will worsen the eye's contrast-detection
threshold. Remember that in
Chapter 2 of this book, we saw that the contrast
threshold depends on the surface brightness
of the background. The threshold will
improve for most faint objects as power is
raised, because they are small and usually
below the optimum magnified visual angle.
Sidgwick wrongly says that lower powers will
make low-contrast detail visible. With these
cautions in mind (which cover only a few
pages of the book), the Amateur Astronomer's
Handbook is an excellent work.
Observational Astronorrry jo r Amateurs by J .B.
Sidgwick, revised by James Muirden (Enslow
Publishers, Hillside, New Jersey, 348 pages,
4th edition, 1982). This companion book to the
one above treats practical aspects of observing.
Though it too is growing dated, it is still
a good, detailed resource for observing the
Sun, Moon, planets (one chapter for each
planet), asteroids, zodiacal light, aurorae,
meteors, comets, and variable and binary
stars. It contains only one-half page on nebulae
and clusters, doesn't mention galaxies (as
if they were just a kind of nebula) , and part of
this page is on photography. For the subjects
the book does cover well, it's one of the best
in its class. This lopsidedness is part of the
reason I wrote the present book: the typical
observing handbook did not properly treat
deep-sky objects.
Atlas oj Deep Sky Splendors by Hans Vehrenberg
(Sky Publishing Corp., Cambridge,
Mass.; Cambridge University Press, Cambridge,
England; and Treugesell-Verlag,
Dusseldorf; 242 pages, 4th edition, 1983).
This beautiful collection of wide-field, mostly
black-and-white photographs shows over 400
galaxies, star clusters, and nebulae. Most of
the photos are a standard 3.5 degrees on a
side, a scale that makes them super finder
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