Telescope Reviews: Book on Star hopping

While it's not a how-to book, a great compact resource/list/atals for star hopping is "The Observer Sky Atlas"

It's great for star-hoppers because of the way each page is layed out-- the left page lists the nebulae, galaxies, stars, variable stars and doubles (with interesting and relevant information, including verble descriptions of the DSO's, distances and true size in light years) that appear on the right page, which has 2 components: a constellation wide view to mag 6, and close-up 'bubbles' to mag 9 for star hopping accurately. It's the close ups that make this atlas so usefull for hopping-- other atlases are laid out with similar left and right pages, but typicaly don't have enough resolution to hop by means other than the geometric method (where you just point your 1X finder (Rigel, Telrad etc) in the proper place relative to nearby bright stars, usually looking for geometric shapes to create, triangles mostly). This atlas has enough resolution to carefully hop using your finder scope, yet also easily supports the geometric method.

The objects listed are great for all scopes, particularly 3-6" (and, as such, is an pretty complete list of the best and brightest in any larger scope), and contain all Messiers, most in not all Caldwell (though not by that designation), several that are neither, and the best double and variable stars. The deep sky objects contain many bright objects, yet some challenging ones as well. The double stars contain doubles ranging from super easy but pretty to challenging sub-arcsecond doubles. Orbital rates are included when known, along with year-specific angular estimates on doubles that change rapidly (like Porrima).

The intro chapters are very informative on general astronomy.

The index provides a single all-sky-all-season sky chart to easily direct you to the proper page for the area of the sky you're interested in. Object are cross referenced by Messier, NGC, and names for those with proper names (like "Whirlpool").

It's small enough to hold in one hand while you look back and forth between the atlas and the finder-- easily turned (inverted) to match the view in the finder.

It's one of the few stand alone atlases that can easily be used at the scope, with enough detail to hop accurately, yet wide enough fields to get your bearings, while still containing far more than just the most basic objects (and, at the same time, none of the objects that really require really large aperture (larger than 16") to appreciate, as is the case with the Kepple and Sanner atlases). It's one of my favorites.

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Kerry