Tony Flanders
Post Laureate
Reged: 05/18/06
Posts: 3467
Loc: Cambridge, MA, USA
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Quote:
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Mr. Steven Hynes also wrote a book about Planetary Nebulas.
That you'll have to sell your car and get a mortgage to buy! Ok, maybe it's not that bad but they go for $100 used. I bet it's amazing, I want it badly but I would like to talk to someone how personally has the book to tell me about it and see if it's really worth it as I'm a serious PN observer.
It's a superb book, but I wouldn't pay $100 for it. A lot of the book consists of the science behind the planetaries, with reference to recent studies. But the science of planetary nebulae has advanced quite a bit in the 18 years since the book was published.
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Tony Flanders
First and foremost observing love: naked eye.
Second, binoculars.
Last but not least, telescopes.
And I sometimes dabble with cameras.
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Cygnus_x1
Sketcher Extraordinaire
Reged: 11/17/04
Posts: 2385
Loc: 50N - too far north!
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I'll be honest - "Star Clusters and How to Observe Them" by Mark Allison is by far the worst astronomy book in my bookshelf and I constantly wish I had not spent $20 to get it.
Also Webb Society's books are pretty old (some from the 70s!) and the quality of sketches in the book leaves a lot to desire. I cannot recommend these either although I have the galaxies volume (I got for free).
There currently is no good observing books out there of globular and open clusters.
In my opinion Best resource is the internet where you get most of the stuff for free and easily. WEBDA has 1200 listed clusters, DSH's asterism database is pretty huge...
/Jake
I agree about Mark Allison's book. I picked up a copy in a bookshop a while back and after a look through I put it back, it was badly produced and the pictures were not well reproduced at all.
The Webb Soc's books are very long in the tooth now, and the sketches didn't reproduce well in them at all, but I have all of them and do refer now and again to them (mostly for old time's sake - I was just getting into deep sky observing when I picked them up in the early 1990s and I love the feeling I get when I open them; the excitement of a new hobby as it was then!), but I tend to use the Night Sky Observer's Guide Vols 1 and 2 and the internet these days, more than anything else.
The best cluster book on the market is the aformentioned Star Clusters by Archinal and Hynes.
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Visual Deep Sky Observing - being rebuilt
Observing blog
My astronomy event photos on Flickr
12 inch Dob
8 inch Celestron C8 Newtonian
4 inch Meade SCT
8x42 Leica binoculars
Various TeleVue eyepieces
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Tony Flanders
Post Laureate
Reged: 05/18/06
Posts: 3467
Loc: Cambridge, MA, USA
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There currently is no good observing books out there of globular and open clusters.
I'd never really thought about it, but I suppose that's true. For open clusters in particular, Sue French's Celestial Sampler might come closest. Obviously, she covers lots of other stuff, but as a small-scope observer, she really has a passion for asterisms and open clusters.
But wouldn't it be cool to have a book that really delves into the science of each open cluster, and then says: "now let's look through the eyepiece and see what evidence we can find of this cluster's age, distance from Earth, and distance from the plane of the Milky Way." I certainly would buy such a book. In fact, I might even write it!
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Tony Flanders
First and foremost observing love: naked eye.
Second, binoculars.
Last but not least, telescopes.
And I sometimes dabble with cameras.
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Rick Woods
Postmaster
Reged: 01/27/05
Posts: 5663
Loc: Inner Solar System
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Quote:
Quote:
Mr. Steven Hynes also wrote a book about Planetary Nebulas.
That you'll have to sell your car and get a mortgage to buy! Ok, maybe it's not that bad but they go for $100 used. I bet it's amazing, I want it badly but I would like to talk to someone how personally has the book to tell me about it and see if it's really worth it as I'm a serious PN observer.
$56 just now on Bookfinder.com.
If you're really into PNs, it's a great book to have, and a good read. I got mine when they were in print. While I don't use it often, when I do need it, there's nothing else that will do. Good catalog of PNs in it too.
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- Rick
14" LX200GPS
Dyslexics Untie!
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davidpitre
Carpal Tunnel
Reged: 05/10/05
Posts: 1824
Loc: Central Texas
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A great reference that Cloudy Nights contributor Alvin Huey has graciously made available for free online is his guide to observing globular clusters :
www.faintfuzzies.com/Files/GlobularClusters.pdf
It contains excellent finder charts, images, and basic info including coordinates, visual magnitudes, size , star magnitudes...
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David
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scopethis
professor emeritus
Reged: 05/30/08
Posts: 629
Loc: Kingman, Ks
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Well, I believe it's time for Steve O'Meara to start on a new book!
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starbux
sage
Reged: 02/08/06
Posts: 289
Loc: Silicon Valley, CA
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Quote:
I'll be honest - "Star Clusters and How to Observe Them" by Mark Allison is by far the worst astronomy book in my bookshelf and I constantly wish I had not spent $20 to get it.
That's why I suggested buying it used. At the used price it might be worth it.
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blb
sage
Reged: 11/25/05
Posts: 214
Loc: Piedmont NC
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Quote:
I'll be honest - "Star Clusters and How to Observe Them" by Mark Allison is by far the worst astronomy book in my bookshelf and I constantly wish I had not spent $20 to get it.
I have a copy of this book and have been looking it over again. So I was wondering what is wrong with it other than some poor quality photo's of clusters. It seems to me to be a good introduction to observing them. Isn't that what the series by Springer is supposed to be? Anyway, I was just curious. 
Buddy
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C-11, C-6, XT10i Dob, ETX125PE, TV102, & AT66
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blb
sage
Reged: 11/25/05
Posts: 214
Loc: Piedmont NC
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Well, I believe it's time for Steve O'Meara to start on a new book!
YES! I would realy love it if Steve O'Meara could do one like he did on the Herschel 400, for globular and open clusters. Now that would be realy great. Maybe even use the Astronomical League's observing clubs manual for a basis. 
Lets hope, Buddy
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C-11, C-6, XT10i Dob, ETX125PE, TV102, & AT66
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blb
sage
Reged: 11/25/05
Posts: 214
Loc: Piedmont NC
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Quote:
Quote:
I'll be honest - "Star Clusters and How to Observe Them" by Mark Allison is by far the worst astronomy book in my bookshelf and I constantly wish I had not spent $20 to get it.
I have a copy of this book and have been looking it over again. So I was wondering what is wrong with it other than some poor quality photo's of clusters. It seems to me to be a good introduction to observing them. Isn't that what the series by Springer is supposed to be? Anyway, I was just curious.
Buddy
So I guess no one can tell me what is wrong with this book!
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C-11, C-6, XT10i Dob, ETX125PE, TV102, & AT66
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JakeSaloranta
sage
Reged: 09/18/08
Posts: 234
Loc: Sisu, Sauna, Sibelius...
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So I guess no one can tell me what is wrong with this book!
Well I think it all depends on the reader. Some of the things I found lacking in my review were:
Photographs
95% of the images in the book look like they were taken before the camera was invented. Photographs are
a) not centered on the object
b) taken with too much "magnification" (for example M48 picture shows only a handful of stars with a field of view approximately 15' when the cluster is over 30' in size)
c) are typically poorly focused, show a lot of grain and are very poorly tracked.
Minimum apertures
Same problem with every deep sky book out there. For example calming G1 to be extremely faint and visible in 12" to 16" telescopes is a joke.
Layout
Many of the pictures are 3-4 pages behind or before the actual object description. As a reader I find it highly annoying. The grainy, barely in focus picture of globular cluster Messier 12 is on page 152 and the description of the object is on page 157.
For the newbies
The book offers very little (if anything) to an advanced amateur observer.
Comprehensive observing list
This basically lists "the best" and some interesting open and globular clusters in the sky. Fairly good choice in objects (you can't really argue about what other people like) but the descriptions of the objects are... well not ¤%&/ but seems to be made in haste and in very basic way. 5 lines on M44 is hardly very detailed and the description doesn't make the object sound interesting or worth looking at in any way. Putting in some different observations made with different size telescope would have spiced up things a bit. It feels like the author has only copied observations from other observers and not cared to looked at the objects on his own.
All and all very amateur-like attempt to make a book, probably with a small budget, leaving the reader wanting more value for money and the brain.
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/Jake
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blb
sage
Reged: 11/25/05
Posts: 214
Loc: Piedmont NC
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I agree that the photo's are not up to par and I would have preferred them to be together with the descriptions, but all in all I think the book is a good introduction to observing clusters. As such it is well worth the money and not worth bashing. At least that's my opinion.
Clear skies, Buddy
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C-11, C-6, XT10i Dob, ETX125PE, TV102, & AT66
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Lane
Carpal Tunnel
Reged: 11/19/07
Posts: 1501
Loc: Frisco, Texas
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If anyone is interested in the book "Star Clusters" by Brent A. Archinal and Steven J. Hynes it is available for $34.95 from www.willbell.com. I just ordered a copy after reading this thread.
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Mounts: CGEM, ORION SIRIUS, AT Voyager/motorized
SCTs: C6, C8, C9.25, C11,
Refractors: TV Pronto, Orion ED80
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obrazell
member
Reged: 04/03/05
Posts: 56
Loc: United Kingdom
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I think then perhaps you should read the book more carefully. It is full of factual errors and poor editing. Although you might claim that beginners do not need to know the facts just a good read I would question that.
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