The Monthly Sky Guide a Book Review

One of the nice things about writing an astronomy blog is I get copies of astronomy books from various publishers sent to me to review. Just before Christmas I received a copy of the eighth edition of Ian Ridpath and Wil Tirion's 'The Monthly Sky Guide'.

This book is a classic beginner level guide to the night sky that includes a great introductory text on finding your way around the heavens, tips on observing the four brightest naked eye planets, a very nice guide to observing the Moon, complete with detailed lunar maps with features labeled, and star charts for each month of the year.

The attention to detail and practicality are notable. For example, the Moon maps are made large enough to show quite a bit of detail. This necessitates them being printed as roughly half a hemisphere per page. Instead of losing detail in the margins of some of the most interesting features on the lunar surface, the maps overlap quite a bit. This is a handy feature that could easily have been overlooked by less experienced or detail oriented authors or publishers.

Everyone you show the Moon to wants to know where the astronauts landed. In answer to this, the sky guide Moon maps show the locations of the landings of Apollo 11, 12, 14, 15 and 16 (remember Apollo 13 never made it to the surface, "Houston, we have a problem!")

The real meat and potatoes of the book are the monthly sky charts, depicting the stars, constellations, nebulae, star clusters and galaxies that are visible to the observer with the unaided eye, binoculars or a small telescope. Thee is also a description of the location and brightness of Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn each month from 2010 to 2014, so this book will serve readers well for the next five years. Also listed are lunar and solar eclipses, and meteor showers visible for each month for the next five years.

The star maps are first quality and should make the beginner or intermediate observer anxious to go check out what can be seen each month. I've been observing the sky for nearly forty years and I find them to be a pleasure to look at and use. Wil Tirion is widely considered the leading celestial cartographer of our time. This night sky guide is just another example of why.

Featured each month are star maps and text highlighting a particular constellation or region of the sky. January features Orion and all the wonderful nebulae and clusters visible to binoculars and small telescopes. The text is well written and scientifically accurate in every aspect. I expected nothing less from the editor of the Oxford Dictionary of Astronomy and Norton's Star Atlas.

If you have a young person or friend you would like to share your love of astronomy with, get them a pair of binoculars and this book and you'll have a star gazing friend for life.

How Old is the Universe?

This could be the shortest book review ever. 
I absolutely love this book- buy it!

I'm serious. I enjoyed reading this book more than anything I have read in a long, long time. I liked everything about it.

David A. Weintraub tells the story of how we know what we know about the universe from the beginning to the end in a simple, elegant, chronological manner. By doing this, you see how each new discovery builds on the knowledge gained by the previous generation of scientists working on the fundamental questions about the universe.

Two things impressed me most. First, the way each discovery is framed in a historical context made it clear how answering each new question fit into the overall picture. It is as much a history of astronomy as it is an explanation of how we know what we know today. Because you see the story unfold in this way, and witness scientists using each new clue to solve another puzzle, the book reads like a great mystery novel. It is one of the most entertaining books you'll ever read on astronomy.

Second, the author writes about serious astrophysical concepts in a clear, honest, readable tone accessible to everyone. You don't need to be an astronomer or physicist to understand what Weintraub is explaining. For example, the 100 words or so he uses to explain black body radiation and why it is an important concept are so well written that I feel I have a better understanding of something I thought I already understood. Disntangling the Hubble constant, the Hubble equation and Hubble time is something that has never been explained as well as it is in this book. I never understood why William Herschel was so interested in double stars until I read this book. It's not a complicated subject, it's just never been presented to me in the context it is in this book. I totally get it. Thank you, David.

I had at least a half dozen epiphanies reading this book. I didn't just learn new facts or concepts, I truly understand some things better than I ever did before. 'How Old Is The Universe' is my new favorite astronomy book. I plan to read it again.

New Astronomy Book from National Geographic!

National Geographic sent me a copy of their brand new astronomy guide to review, and I'm glad they did. Backyard Guide to the Night Sky is a great new, up to date addition to the list of available field guides on the shelves of book sellers these days.

The first thing you'll notice when you pick it up is the handy 5.5 by 8 inch carry along size. The second thing you notice, just by thumbing through the pages, is this handsome little field guide is richly illustrated. I would expect nothing less from National Geographic.

The book is divided into 10 chapters, beginning with observing basics, the atmosphere, sun, moon and planets. Each of these chapters is designed into two page articles, so every time you turn a leaf you are into a new topic. This makes it very attractive for two reasons. One, it breaks up an enormous amount of information into manageable pieces, and two, each section can be referred to later as a reference on that specific subject.

The brevity necessitated by this format prohibits in depth discussion of topics, but this book is meant to be more of an introduction to astronomy than a thorough text.

Along with the main text, the book is brimming with sidebars, boxes, tables, fast facts and objects of interest. The progression of topics is logical and easy to follow.

There are a few minor typos including the subtext for 'Five Coolest Things in the Sky' reading "Every beginning sky watcher should seek out these ten fascinating naked-eye features." But these are minimal. More importantly, I found the factual information to be correct throughout.

The second half of the book deals with stars and constellations. It deals effectively with star birth and stellar evolution, double stars and star clusters. Novae, supernovae and black holes are covered in two pages and variable stars are given just a side box under double stars, but I won't hold that against this volume. Especially since it makes a point of calling astrology a pseudoscience in no uncertain terms when explaining the zodiac.

Chapter seven features seasonal fold-flat, two-page star maps as shown from roughly 40 degrees north latitude. Due to the small size of the book, the all sky star maps are about the equivalent of a 7 inch planisphere. The gap in the maps between pages is most unfortunate for the winter sky. Orion, Taurus and Auriga are interrupted and lost in the crease of the book. The other seasons are less affected. Stars down to about 5th magnitude, the Milky Way, ecliptic and many deep sky objects are included and the constellations are clearly and neatly delineated.

In conjunction with chapter seven, chapter eight could be considered the heart of this book. It contains charts of individual constellations. Each constellation section contains a star map, and a combination of fast facts, mythology, tables of the brightest stars and boxes containing lists of interesting objects contained in the constellation. As an example of the up to date content in this guide, the upcoming eclipse of epsilon Aurigae is discussed at some length in the chapter on Auriga.

A useful feature not included might have been a guide to pronouncing the constellation names. I know experienced amateurs and professionals who still butcher Camelopardalis! Happily, several constellation's interesting objects were variable stars, including Z Cam and VZ Cam in Camelopardalis.

Chapter 9 does a very good job of describing comets, meteors, meteor showers and their origins, as well as the concept of earth as target in a shooting gallery in space. Chapter 10, Deep Space, deals with the universe, the big bang, dark matter and many of the topics that are the frontier of cosmology today. The topics are treated in the same two page brevity of the earlier chapters, but nonetheless cover the ground surprisingly well in a few pages.

For a book whose purpose is to introduce the reader to a wealth of information, it hits on all cylinders. This will make a great first astronomy book for any teen or adult just getting their feet wet in astronomy and observing the night sky.

I consider myself to be an experienced observer, yet I found myself learning new things and marveling at the clarity of the descriptions of topics I know well. I plan to keep my copy out in the observatory for those nights when we have visitors. It will be a great quick reference for questions people always ask, like- how far, what magnitude, how big, how old, when was it discovered, etc. What's more, there are nice pictures and illustrations to help answer the questions.

For $21.95 USD, this is a great buy. Go get one.

Backyard Guide to the Night Sky
By Howard Schneider
ISBN: 978-1-4262-0281-0

Observatories of the Southwest: A Book Review

To me, and many of my friends, astronomical observatories are sacred, magical places where the mysteries of the universe are revealed to astronomers peering out into space with fantastic telescopes of all imaginable shapes and configurations. The fact that most of the largest, most famous observatories are located on mountain tops in far off places just makes them all that much more mysterious and wonderful.



Thousands of people make pilgrimages to these far off locations each year, to marvel at the state of the art in instrumentation and to learn more about the science being done with these massive machines in their unusual structures.



As it happens, the American Southwest, with its dry air and mountainous regions is home to many of the best observatories in the world. These observatories are the subjects of a new book by Douglas Isbell and Stephen E. Strom called Observatories of the Southwest, A Guide for Curious Skywatchers, published by The University of Arizona Press. If you are planning a trip to one or more of these places in the near future you need to buy this book. If you want to know the history behind any of these magical places, or meet some of the people who work there, or learn about the science being done with these gargantuan collections of glass, steel and electronics�buy this book.



It isn�t just the subjects of this book, the illustrations or the excellent writing that make it a wonderful read. It�s the way the book is organized; part travel guide, part history book, part human interest and part popular science.



Each observatory has its own chapter. The authors guide us through Palomar Observatory, Kitt Peak National Observatory, Lowell Observatory, Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory, the National Radio Astronomy Observatory Very Large Array, the Observatories of Sacramento Peak, McDonald Observatory and the Mount Graham International Observatory.



Each chapter can stand on its own as a perfect travel companion for any trip you decide to plan or take to any of these places. You are provided with the website url, contact phone number and physical address of each place to set up a visit.



Within each chapter you get a history of the planning and construction of the observatory and instruments, and the initial discoveries brought about by the use of the observatories and their telescopes. Many of these interesting stories are full accounts you�ll find hard to locate anywhere else, let alone all in one resource. This was one of my favorite aspects of this book. The stories behind investigating the suitability of each site, planning the construction, raising the money and building these multi-million dollar facilities on top of remote mountains where no roads exist is almost as interesting as the reasons for doing it.



A �For the Public� section gives driving directions, hours of operations a description of the facilities, displays and gift shops and what you are able to view during public tours. Another section in each chapter called �For Teachers and Students� gives useful information on programs available for school age kids, college students and amateur astronomers wanting to do observing or public outreach.



Some of the highlights of this book are the interviews with leading scientists who actually worked at the observatories or used the telescopes to make landmark discoveries in science. For example, Vera Rubin is featured in the chapter on Kitt Peak. She talks about the her work and its place in the story of dark matter, but what is even better are her descriptions of actually working at the observatory and with the staff. Her description of the desert flowers and sunsets from the south ridge of Kitt Peak show how special these places are for more than just the purely scientific reasons. Indeed, it is clear most of the interview subjects held each of their observatories in high regard for many reasons, some of them very non-scientific.



But what sets this book apart from any other travel guide to observatories or historical account of the activities and discoveries at each observatory is the �Science Highlight� at the end of each chapter. This is where all the information is put into the context of how past achievements relate to what we are trying to learn today, what questions are being asked now, and how these instruments and people are working to find the answers. This is the juicy stuff you never get in a three-dollar tour from a research assistant or telescope operator when visiting a major observatory.



So if you are planning a trip to a southwest observatory this year, buy this book. Then you can be that annoying know-it-all person on the tour who answers all the questions before the tour guide can get a word out.
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