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Crusader
sage
Reged: 08/14/05
Posts: 401
Loc: Karoo, South Africa
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"Stars & Planets" by Ridpath and Tirion are on my list to get.
Ed. I see your point. I think the PSA will suit me fine, for a while at least, at the moment I basically only use my finderscope to locate objects so mag. 7.5 should be enough.
When I really want to go into detail or go searching for the really faint DSO's I'll consider getting a more detailed atlas. Of course if there is a one-stop atlas someone can recommend I'd take that into consideration as well.
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Orion Skyquest XT10 10" dob.
Skywatcher Evostar 90mm F/10 Refractor on AZ3 mount.
25mm and 10mm Sirius Plossl eyepieces, Skywatcher 8-24mm Zoom EP. Orion O-III filter & Shorty Plus Barlow.
Spacewallpapers.net - The Ultimate Free Space wallpapers
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JT5
sage
Reged: 11/08/07
Posts: 271
Loc: Ozarks of Missouri
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Ed makes a good point on PSA star chart limitations. However, IMHO it is meaningful only if one is looking for the very dim objects below 7.5. Would it make a difference? I have a PSA that I plan most of my observing with; but also have the Sky Atlas 2000.0 by Tiron and Sinnott.
John
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My wife shares my love of the night skies and tolerates all of my other hobbies.
Televue Pronto
Meade 2045D
Meade ETX-125PE
Meade 12" Lightbridge
Meade, Swan and Televue Lenses (33, 26, 20, 15 & 9mm), Televue Barlow
Catsperch Observing Chair
Member: Astronomical Society of Eastern Missouri
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Protheus
Vaguely offended
Reged: 09/01/07
Posts: 4658
Loc: Illinois, US
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Quote:
Ed makes a good point on PSA star chart limitations. However, IMHO it is meaningful only if one is looking for the very dim objects below 7.5. Would it make a difference? I have a PSA that I plan most of my observing with; but also have the Sky Atlas 2000.0 by Tiron and Sinnott.
If you want something a little deeper and more comprehensive, there's always Uranometria 2000, which goes to 9.75, vs. Sky Atlas 2000's 8.5.
Uranometria is also available for free, but I have no idea how deep it goes, and it's probably somewhat dated. 
Chris
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"To tread the sharp edge of a sword;
to run on smooth-frozen ice,
one needs no footsteps to follow..."
"Well, people sometimes ask me 'how did you get involved in astronomy?' I said 'I got born, what's your problem?'" -- John Dobson
"In discussing the large-scale structure of the cosmos, astronomers sometimes say that space is curved, or that the universe is finite but unbounded. Whatever are they talking about?" -- Carl Sagan
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Crusader
sage
Reged: 08/14/05
Posts: 401
Loc: Karoo, South Africa
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My Sky and Telescope PSA arrived yesterday. I'm more than happy with the purchase. It definitely won't be a problem to use it in the southern hemisphere, although getting the orientation right will be a challenge at first.
The spiral binding makes it easy to flip through the charts and place it totally flat on a table without the book constantly flipping shut.
I haven't had much chance to put it to use though, although for the brief period conditions were good I managed to track down M4 (the first page I flipped to and looked for a Messier object) using only the chart as reference.
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Orion Skyquest XT10 10" dob.
Skywatcher Evostar 90mm F/10 Refractor on AZ3 mount.
25mm and 10mm Sirius Plossl eyepieces, Skywatcher 8-24mm Zoom EP. Orion O-III filter & Shorty Plus Barlow.
Spacewallpapers.net - The Ultimate Free Space wallpapers
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mcoren
Pooh-Bah
Reged: 01/11/06
Posts: 1150
Loc: Northern Virginia, USA
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Quote:
"Stars & Planets" by Ridpath and Tirion are on my list to get.
Ed. I see your point. I think the PSA will suit me fine, for a while at least, at the moment I basically only use my finderscope to locate objects so mag. 7.5 should be enough.
When I really want to go into detail or go searching for the really faint DSO's I'll consider getting a more detailed atlas. Of course if there is a one-stop atlas someone can recommend I'd take that into consideration as well.
I have the previous (3rd) edition of "Stars & Planets" and I think it's a good, worthwhile volume. I used to take it with me to use when I would borrow a StarBlast from my astronomy club and visit my in-laws, who lived under much darker skies than I do.
I do most of my observing with my 10" dob with the PSA, but most of that is at home in the suburbs where I can see mag 4 on a good night (mag 3.5 is typical). When I do go to a dark sky site, I bring Sky Atlas 2000 with me. In truth, however, I can only think of one object I've ever come across that was plotted in SA2000 that wasn't in the PSA (Cr21, an open cluster in Triangulum).
The PSA is a great value. You can get a lot of mileage out of it.
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Mike
Orion SkyQuest XT10
Suburban Washington DC
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pankhi
member
Reged: 01/26/08
Posts: 54
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This is a great atlas but I noticed that it does not include NGC 6543 Cat's eye nebula in Draco. It's not in the index and it's not on the map. I don't know if anything else hasn't been included. Despite this, it is an excellent atlas. For those who own this atlas, does your copy also not include NGC 6543 or do I have a badly printed copy?
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csa/montana
Astro Ambassador
Reged: 05/14/05
Posts: 28654
Loc: montana
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I see it on page 51 & 61 
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Carol
AstroTech 16" Dob (Thanks ASTRONOMICS!)
AstroTech 66ED / Vixen 80MF/AstroTech Voyager
Masuyama's 7.5, 15, 25W, 35mm,
Tak LE 5mm B/TMB 3.2
7mm Pentax XL, 10mm Pentax XW
14mm Meade 4000 UWA
22mm Pan, 35mm Pan
DreamCatcher Dobservatory, #2
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csa/montana
Astro Ambassador
Reged: 05/14/05
Posts: 28654
Loc: montana
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In the index they misprinted it, calling it 6643, rather than 6543.
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Carol
AstroTech 16" Dob (Thanks ASTRONOMICS!)
AstroTech 66ED / Vixen 80MF/AstroTech Voyager
Masuyama's 7.5, 15, 25W, 35mm,
Tak LE 5mm B/TMB 3.2
7mm Pentax XL, 10mm Pentax XW
14mm Meade 4000 UWA
22mm Pan, 35mm Pan
DreamCatcher Dobservatory, #2
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NerfMonkey
sage
Reged: 06/12/08
Posts: 204
Loc: NE Ohio
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I think yours just has a mistake in it. Mine definitely includes 6543 as I used the atlas to find it and only later found out that it was the Cat's Eye. In the review on this site the author says:
Quote:
Back inside later that evening, I noticed a printing error in the Virgo Cluster close-up chart in the back of the atlas. Specifically, on that close-up chart, it looks like something prevented the black ink from printing in a small area around where rho Vir should be. There are two red circles that presumably indicate the positions of NGC 4596 and 4608, but no black text or symbols in the immediate area. The grid lines are broken, and neither rho Vir nor nearby 6th magnitude 27 Vir are present.
I checked mine and it doesn't have this problem either. I suppose more or less every copy has a few errors.
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Mike
71 Messiers
155 total DSOs
6 planets
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MikeRatcliff
Pooh-Bah
Reged: 06/12/04
Posts: 1108
Loc: Redlands, CA
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Cat's Eye: In my version of the PSA, it is in the Planetary Nebula listing (Page xxii) and the Caldwell List (C6) (Page xxiii), but it is not called the "Cat's Eye" anywhere in the PSA. Just only by the NGC number, 6543. It is correctly plotted as NGC 6543 on pages 51 and 61.
There are other larger listings of other object types, like galaxies, and it may have appeared that 6543 was skipped. But it would of course not be in the galaxy list or the other lists.
I really like the Pocket Sky Atlas. My only "problem" is it is small, and I have misplaced it a couple of times. In contrast, the Sky Atlas 2000 is much bigger -- hard to lose that one!
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16" f/4.9 dob
Tele Vue Plossls 32,25,20,15,11
13 Nagler T6
10.5 Pentax XL
Brandon 32, 16
12.5 UO ortho, 9 Circle T ortho
2x TV Barlow
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Crusader
sage
Reged: 08/14/05
Posts: 401
Loc: Karoo, South Africa
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With mine, just like Carol's, in the index of the NGC objects it is misprinted as 6643, but on 51 and 61 it is shown as 6543. It's also correctly printed in the index of planetary nebulae.
Mine also doesn't have the "NGC 4596 and 4608" problem.
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Orion Skyquest XT10 10" dob.
Skywatcher Evostar 90mm F/10 Refractor on AZ3 mount.
25mm and 10mm Sirius Plossl eyepieces, Skywatcher 8-24mm Zoom EP. Orion O-III filter & Shorty Plus Barlow.
Spacewallpapers.net - The Ultimate Free Space wallpapers
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mcoren
Pooh-Bah
Reged: 01/11/06
Posts: 1150
Loc: Northern Virginia, USA
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Quote:
I think yours just has a mistake in it. Mine definitely includes 6543 as I used the atlas to find it and only later found out that it was the Cat's Eye. In the review on this site the author says:
Quote:
Back inside later that evening, I noticed a printing error in the Virgo Cluster close-up chart in the back of the atlas. Specifically, on that close-up chart, it looks like something prevented the black ink from printing in a small area around where rho Vir should be. There are two red circles that presumably indicate the positions of NGC 4596 and 4608, but no black text or symbols in the immediate area. The grid lines are broken, and neither rho Vir nor nearby 6th magnitude 27 Vir are present.
I checked mine and it doesn't have this problem either. I suppose more or less every copy has a few errors.
That was me.  There were two errors in the first printing that I used for my review, which have apparently been corrected in subsequent printings. If you have one of these early printings, you can download corrected pages at
http://www.skyandtelescope.com/psa
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Mike
Orion SkyQuest XT10
Suburban Washington DC
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MikeRatcliff
Pooh-Bah
Reged: 06/12/04
Posts: 1108
Loc: Redlands, CA
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Quote:
With mine, just like Carol's, in the index of the NGC objects it is misprinted as 6643 ...
You may want to double check that. The NGC Galaxy List is so long that it seems like a general list, but it's not. The 6643 is a real galaxy not far away.
The galaxy list is SO long, I can see where it can be confused with a general list. On some of the pages they don't indicate that it's just a galaxy list.
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16" f/4.9 dob
Tele Vue Plossls 32,25,20,15,11
13 Nagler T6
10.5 Pentax XL
Brandon 32, 16
12.5 UO ortho, 9 Circle T ortho
2x TV Barlow
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Crusader
sage
Reged: 08/14/05
Posts: 401
Loc: Karoo, South Africa
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Oops! You're absolutely right. I must've looked at the galaxy list and thought it was a general list since the heading isn't repeated om the continued pages.
My Stars and Planets should be arriving this afternoon. At least I'll have something to read while it's still cloudy.
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Orion Skyquest XT10 10" dob.
Skywatcher Evostar 90mm F/10 Refractor on AZ3 mount.
25mm and 10mm Sirius Plossl eyepieces, Skywatcher 8-24mm Zoom EP. Orion O-III filter & Shorty Plus Barlow.
Spacewallpapers.net - The Ultimate Free Space wallpapers
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MikeRatcliff
Pooh-Bah
Reged: 06/12/04
Posts: 1108
Loc: Redlands, CA
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The formatting could definitely be improved on the NGC lists.
But overall the PSA is one of the best astronomy purchases I've made, very handy for intermediate level objects.
Just like a garage door opener, once you get one you wonder how you did without for so long. S&T can quote me on that, for what that is worth. 
Mike
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16" f/4.9 dob
Tele Vue Plossls 32,25,20,15,11
13 Nagler T6
10.5 Pentax XL
Brandon 32, 16
12.5 UO ortho, 9 Circle T ortho
2x TV Barlow
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InkDark
Carpal Tunnel
Reged: 10/29/07
Posts: 1506
Loc: Montreal, Canada
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Quote:
In the index they misprinted it, calling it 6643, rather than 6543.
It's not misprinted in mine. Bought it two years ago.
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Jimmy
"Rarely Have So Many Understood So Little About So Much" - Palle Yourgrau
"...since that time, I have not complained about the weather one single time. I’m glad there is weather." – Alan Bean, Apollo 12
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