Customer reviews
4.7 out of 5 stars
183 customer ratings
-
Turn Left at Orion
- ›
-
Customer reviews
- Turn Left at Orion
- ›
- Customer reviews
Top positive review
5th edition slightly improved on 4th edition
15 June 2019
I know this book quite well.
It's a DIY backyard star hopper's guide to interest targets in the night sky
Could be double-stars, nebulae, globulars or galaxies... the latter not easy to see in light polluted skies.
It's a practical guide on what to see. The sort of book you need with your first telescope.
It's also highly rated, and for sure one of the best books for practical amateur astronomers who want to get out of the armchair and actually see something through their telescope!!
Friendly writing, the 5th edition has an improved and expanded section on finding planets.
The 4th edition itself was a major rewrite and upgrade of the 3rd edition.
Anyway, one of my favourite books on backyard astronomy. Enjoy.
It's a DIY backyard star hopper's guide to interest targets in the night sky
Could be double-stars, nebulae, globulars or galaxies... the latter not easy to see in light polluted skies.
It's a practical guide on what to see. The sort of book you need with your first telescope.
It's also highly rated, and for sure one of the best books for practical amateur astronomers who want to get out of the armchair and actually see something through their telescope!!
Friendly writing, the 5th edition has an improved and expanded section on finding planets.
The 4th edition itself was a major rewrite and upgrade of the 3rd edition.
Anyway, one of my favourite books on backyard astronomy. Enjoy.
One person found this helpful
Top critical review
Not for the beginner
22 June 2019
I was hoping for a beginner book to help me find objects with my telescope. You need to be an expert on no all the names of the stars, and I mean all the names, as some stars seem to have more than one name. You also need to no all the constellations by all there different names. And you also need to no where in the sky these are. Also you wouldn’t no if you found anything because there are no photos to show you what you could be seeing. I’m actually confused as to who this book is targeted at. So far I haven’t found anything in this book because I don’t no where to look, the reason I bought the book in the first place. I find I have to use my phone app to try and find a star that the book is taking about only the find that the diagram in the book looks nothing like what I am looking at in the sky. I really cannot understand the fantastic reviews this book has. I can honestly say this is the most disappointing and confusing book or web based beginners guides I have come across. If you are already and expert at stargazing and just bought a telescope then you would probably love this book. But if you have just bought a telescope and are learning about the universe then I would wait and find a different book
3 people found this helpful
Showing 1-10 of 183 reviews
There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.
22 June 2019
I was hoping for a beginner book to help me find objects with my telescope. You need to be an expert on no all the names of the stars, and I mean all the names, as some stars seem to have more than one name. You also need to no all the constellations by all there different names. And you also need to no where in the sky these are. Also you wouldn’t no if you found anything because there are no photos to show you what you could be seeing. I’m actually confused as to who this book is targeted at. So far I haven’t found anything in this book because I don’t no where to look, the reason I bought the book in the first place. I find I have to use my phone app to try and find a star that the book is taking about only the find that the diagram in the book looks nothing like what I am looking at in the sky. I really cannot understand the fantastic reviews this book has. I can honestly say this is the most disappointing and confusing book or web based beginners guides I have come across. If you are already and expert at stargazing and just bought a telescope then you would probably love this book. But if you have just bought a telescope and are learning about the universe then I would wait and find a different book
15 June 2019
I know this book quite well.
It's a DIY backyard star hopper's guide to interest targets in the night sky
Could be double-stars, nebulae, globulars or galaxies... the latter not easy to see in light polluted skies.
It's a practical guide on what to see. The sort of book you need with your first telescope.
It's also highly rated, and for sure one of the best books for practical amateur astronomers who want to get out of the armchair and actually see something through their telescope!!
Friendly writing, the 5th edition has an improved and expanded section on finding planets.
The 4th edition itself was a major rewrite and upgrade of the 3rd edition.
Anyway, one of my favourite books on backyard astronomy. Enjoy.
It's a DIY backyard star hopper's guide to interest targets in the night sky
Could be double-stars, nebulae, globulars or galaxies... the latter not easy to see in light polluted skies.
It's a practical guide on what to see. The sort of book you need with your first telescope.
It's also highly rated, and for sure one of the best books for practical amateur astronomers who want to get out of the armchair and actually see something through their telescope!!
Friendly writing, the 5th edition has an improved and expanded section on finding planets.
The 4th edition itself was a major rewrite and upgrade of the 3rd edition.
Anyway, one of my favourite books on backyard astronomy. Enjoy.
20 January 2016
I bought this on the strength of the reviews here as I am considering getting into astronomy and might buy myself a telescope. Opening this book I immediately felt drawn in by the friendly style, engaging text and loved the layout. I quickly found myself armed with a working understanding of some ideas that had evaded comprehension previously and couldn't wait to get started. From the infectious enthusiasm of the author I went straight outside with my bird watching binoculars and immediately found the Andromeda Galaxy, a smudge in the sky, billions of stars in a galaxy like our own Milky Way, easy to find when you know where to look, and also when you know what it is going to look like. That's how easy it is to get started with this book. Pick it up, and ten minutes later you are doing astronomy. I am looking forward to exploring the sky, now that I have an authoritative guide. Perfect gift for the scientifically curious. Should be given out free to every 10 year old child at school. When I can afford it I will probably be getting a 200mm Newtonian reflector with an equatorial mount that can be upgraded with a motorised mount and a finding computer added. There are fabulous images in books and online from big telescopes that show the hearts of galaxies in beautiful detail. These can be compared with images in this book of what you will actually see through binoculars or a telescope together with instructions on how to find them.
24 September 2013
This book is a fantastic 'work book' to explore the night sky.
It provides a huge list of interesting objects to sight, with directions to them and illustrations of what you might see through modest amateur telescopes.
The book is physically bigger than I had imagined - 270 X 310 mm. I write dates of sightings and notes in the margins.
I do most of my astronomy at the end of my garden where I have a shed that can accommodate a laptop. Using this book with the free planetarium program, Stellarium, is really useful. Clearly a planetarium program can show you more stars at the resolution you need than the best drawing in a book. If you are using visual star pattern recognition to find targets, rather than fancy guided telescopes, then that is handy. Using Stellarium and this book in tandem makes even the 'tricky' objects fairly easy to find.
If I had to recommend two books to somebody who had just purchased a telescope I would recommend this one. Then I would recommend this one again, as the first one gets rather messy in constant use, particularly if you keep writing all over it!
It provides a huge list of interesting objects to sight, with directions to them and illustrations of what you might see through modest amateur telescopes.
The book is physically bigger than I had imagined - 270 X 310 mm. I write dates of sightings and notes in the margins.
I do most of my astronomy at the end of my garden where I have a shed that can accommodate a laptop. Using this book with the free planetarium program, Stellarium, is really useful. Clearly a planetarium program can show you more stars at the resolution you need than the best drawing in a book. If you are using visual star pattern recognition to find targets, rather than fancy guided telescopes, then that is handy. Using Stellarium and this book in tandem makes even the 'tricky' objects fairly easy to find.
If I had to recommend two books to somebody who had just purchased a telescope I would recommend this one. Then I would recommend this one again, as the first one gets rather messy in constant use, particularly if you keep writing all over it!
5 January 2013
I cannot recommend this book highly enough. My daughter, aged 11, asked for a telescope for Christmas so we decided to buy a beginner scope - a Skywatcher Heritage 130 - and some books to go along with it. I read other reviews about this book and based on them we purchased it too. It really is what you need when you buy a telescope, it has superb sections on the moon, the most important stars to learn your way about the night sky, and it shows what the sky will look like to the naked eye, through a finder scope or binoculars and a telescope - this is its unique feature that sets it apart from other books. There is enough in this book to set you going in the hobby and keep you at it for years to come. A must buy.
22 March 2014
I read quite a few 'Astronomy for beginners' books before buying this and it is by very far the best I have read.
Too many people buy their first telescope only to put it away after looking at the moon as they are unaware what other facinating sights await them.
Many books which are 'written by enthusiasts for beginners' fall into the unskilled author trap of assuming the beginner has some basic knowledge which is obvious to the author. (One simple example being that the view in your scope can be inverted and or mirrored from that shown by their example. A source of great confusion otherwise).
The authors of this book have not fallen into this trap and have the skill of clearly imparting what you need to get started, giving examples of what you will see applicable to your viewing device, where to look for and find it etc. etc. Plus the skill to appeal to the more experienced without appearing to be talking down to them.
You only need to buy one book to get you, and keep you, on the path to an enjoyable hobby and this is it. So a well deserved full 5 stars.
Too many people buy their first telescope only to put it away after looking at the moon as they are unaware what other facinating sights await them.
Many books which are 'written by enthusiasts for beginners' fall into the unskilled author trap of assuming the beginner has some basic knowledge which is obvious to the author. (One simple example being that the view in your scope can be inverted and or mirrored from that shown by their example. A source of great confusion otherwise).
The authors of this book have not fallen into this trap and have the skill of clearly imparting what you need to get started, giving examples of what you will see applicable to your viewing device, where to look for and find it etc. etc. Plus the skill to appeal to the more experienced without appearing to be talking down to them.
You only need to buy one book to get you, and keep you, on the path to an enjoyable hobby and this is it. So a well deserved full 5 stars.
5 March 2019
This the best starter guide for the amatuer astronomer that I have met. It contains practical observing advice on all classes of astronomical objects without getting too bogged down in technicality. It also has really good and easy to use guides to finding 100 deep sky objects - double stars, nebulae etc. By the time you have worked through these you will be well on the wy to becoming a reasonably competent astronomer able to find your way around the night sky.
14 March 2014
This is a simple to follow and detailed practical guide to learning the night sky for someone who is a complete novice. Large format book with clear and easy to understand use of English. Written in a way to make it easy to grasp the concepts being described. I have a good theoretical knowledge of astronomy but lack a practical knowledge. I recently bought a telescope and wanted something to help me get to grips with the physical aspects of pointing a scope at the night sky. This book is excellent for this and the pages as I understand it are designed to be clear under a red light making it useful at your side in the dark hours of the night. Expensive but very worth while.
2 October 2012
I Have bought several books on stargazing over the years, most have been either basic, or specific on a particular aspect on stargazing, but this wonderfull large thick book has the lot !!
Everything you need to know about stargazing is covered in this wonderfull book, were to find planets and constalations including easy to read sky maps , and in words we can actually understand.
This is quite a large and heavy-ish A4 size manual, and it has a clever spring wire spine so you can open the pages completly flat without having to bend the pages and risk damage to the book.
Dont be put off by the price, its actually very good value.
A wonderfull purchase for when outside stargazing or some light interseting bed time reading.
Everything you need to know about stargazing is covered in this wonderfull book, were to find planets and constalations including easy to read sky maps , and in words we can actually understand.
This is quite a large and heavy-ish A4 size manual, and it has a clever spring wire spine so you can open the pages completly flat without having to bend the pages and risk damage to the book.
Dont be put off by the price, its actually very good value.
A wonderfull purchase for when outside stargazing or some light interseting bed time reading.
11 December 2018
it's down on the level of a mortal stargazer with a basic little telescope. Doesn't assume any special skill and gives practical advice about things you can actually find and see without a super swanky mount and scope
