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

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.

Incredible presentation of stellar objects! I've sat and read through this for hours to help inspire and plan my star gazing events. I've never seen a better and more dense presentation of data. Really this is a text book on how to present information. My only complaint is that there are a few items that I think weren't covered in the explanations, but I guess given the extreme density of information, it could happen.

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.

Incredible amount of information in a compact form. Data is presented using color coding, symbols, numbers, and drawings. It takes a little effort to understand the presentation, but it is well worth it. One example that I enjoyed is a complete calendar for every year from 1993 to 2076 that fits on a single page!!!

Though the information in this book is brief and condensed, the very concept of this atlas is intriguing to me. It is primarily a picture book, not just photos (there are a few but they are generally small), but of maps and charts and insets and more. This book is very rich in graphics and printed on high gloss paper, stylish and appealing to those tuned into visual learning. And though the book never goes into any great detail, it covers quite a wide range of objects, listing some of the main items of interest for each constellation. It's a good starter for newcomers to the hobby, providing a great overview and with enough material here to keep someone engaged for many months. It's even a book seasoned observers can turn to on cloudy nights and still find themselves exploring all that the heavens have to offer. My one criticism of this book is that it is too small! I wish it was bigger so i could see all the info in the graphics in more detail. But apart from this I've really enjoyed this book and I consider this a worthy addition to my astronomy library. I can certainly recommend it to others.

This is a magnificent atlas. At first glance it seems perhaps too abundant in details, but the organization of the data is so good that its reading does not overwhelm the reader. It is incredible how it has been possible to condense as much information in so few pages. I stargaze with binoculars and this guide is a good reference. When deep sky objects are suitable for binoculars, it is specified with an icon. More than half of the 500 objects cited in the Atlas are available to 10x50 binoculars. The atlas is designed in such a way that by illuminating it at night with red light some details of the maps stand out and others disappear, so at night it looks like another book different from when read by day. A superb book for binocular astronomy.

This is a fantastic reference book for the casual or serious star-gazer. Each edition improves on the one before, and this one is easily the best yet. It is comprehensive, so it can be used wherever you live on planet Earth.

This is the best planning guide for the amateur astrophotographer that I have seen. I can’t say enough about how valuable this book has been for helping me select which objects are the ones most likely to lead to great pictures with my equipment at hand and available evening sky. A must for any budding astrophotographer hobbyist!

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

Completo e pratico, ottimo per organizzare una serata di osservazioni o foto

Livro maravilhoso de astronomia de céu profundo. Bem detalhado e excelentes fotos.

Good book, I like it

Alles perfect, prachtig boek, dank u.