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The Urban Astronomer's Guide
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A Review by Javier Lopez
Living in the South Florida Peninsula, you get used to light pollution. In 2005, I purchased my first "real" telescope and soon learned how badly light polluted South Florida really is. Although a trip to a dark sky site is only 60 miles away, I live in the suburbs outside of Miami and wanted to take advantage of my decent sized back yard. My sky's limiting magnitude is around 4, the sky towards the north is a grayish white haze where only Polaris is visible and the big dipper if high enough in the sky. The rest of the sky is a little better but after 2 years of limited success in searching for DSOs, I decided to look for help.
The Urban Astronomer's Guide by Rod Mollise may be the help I require. The intent of the book is simple: a guide for stargazing Deep Sky Objects in light pollution. My hope was that there would be several Deep Sky Objects listed that I might be able to observe from my suburban location as well as techniques I could use to observe those faint objects. So far I have not been disappointed. There are tons of DSO's listed here not discussed in other beginner's books. The book is well-written and easy to follow and was written where beginners as well as intermediate amateur astronomers would find it interesting.
Part I of the book entitled: Telescopes and Techniques covers everything from the why one would want to observe from the city to the writers experience with types of telescopes and needed techniques to beat the light pollution blues. Mr. Mollise explains the advantages in large and short focal length telescopes and which objects benefit from either type. The author discusses in great detail the differences between the different types of Light-Pollution Reduction Filters, eyepieces, finders, computer software, print atlases, etc.
The book discuses techniques which experienced amateurs may be familiar with but beginners and intermediates may have heard of but not understand completely. Things like the use of averted vision, "jiggling" the telescope to tease out details in faint objects. Dark Adaptation is discussed and it's importance, all invaluable lessons that every amateur astronomer should learn.
Another topic I found interesting was the explanation of surface brightness and how it relates to the size of an object. In short an 8-magnitude object that is large may be more difficult to view than say a 10-magnitude object that is small. Also discussed is how using higher magnifications can darken the sky glow background and help bring out detail in faint objects.
Here's a list of the chapters in Part I of this book:
Part I Telescopes and Techniques
1. The Why's and Hows of Urban Observing
2. Telescopes for Urban Observers
3. Accessories for Urban Observers
4. Urban Observing Techniques and Projects
5. Urban Observing Programs
Part II of the book entitled: A Walking Tour of the Cosmos is what makes this book a keeper. This section of the book goes over examples of objects that are perfect for city observation. The four chapters as you might imagine are broken up by season, Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter. Each season gives 4 lists of objects that the Author feels are viewable for the given season and time. An example of such a tour is Spring's Tour 1. Objects included in this tour are M94, M51, M106, M63, M81, M82, M101, M97, M3 and the Double Star Cor Caroli.
Each
object is discussed in detail with the author's notes from his personal
journal. Mr. Mollise discusses the
use of filters that can enhance a particular object, magnification that should
be used to view certain objects, and what you should expect to see at the
eyepiece. The author also includes
his personal illustrations of objects he's included in his journals, which
gives you a good idea of what you should be able to see in the eyepiece. The illustrations are very good and to
me are much more useful than the Hubble type images commonly seen in astronomy
books.
M3 as illustrated by Rod Mollise
The
only thing I found a little odd about this book would be the inclusion of
such difficult to see objects as M1 and M51.
The author even writes: "Sadly, I have to admit that in the city it
(M51) is something of a dud." He also writes: "you
have to be satisfied just to say you've seen it (M1)." These are
just two of several objects the author himself confesses are extremely
challenging, if not impossible to view from a light-polluted location. Why
not focus on objects that are less challenging? Maybe have one object
at the end of each tour that might be a challenge.
This is not to say the book does
not reward the reader with some surprisingly easy to see objects. I was recently treated to a "hidden
treasure" in the open cluster M46.
As it turns out there is a planetary nebulae (NGC2438) within this
semi-impressive cluster that makes M46 a showpiece object in my opinion. If not for this book, I may not have
spent much more than 10 minutes viewing M46. I now find myself going back to it time after time just as I
do with M42 and M45.
Here's a list of the chapter in
Part II of this book:
Part
II: A Walking Tour of the Cosmos
6.
Spring
Tour 1 Burning Heart of the
Hunting Dogs, M94, M51 and Company
Tour 2 Lions Den
Tour 3 Tresses of Berenice
Tour 4 In the Arms of the Maiden
7.
Summer
Tour 1 The Friendly Stars
Tour 2 Arkenstone in the Stars
Tour 3 Star Nests in Cygnus
Tour 4 Requiem for the Dead Stars
8.
Autumn
Tour 1 A Trio of Fall Globulars
Tour 2 Titan and Crab
Tour 3 The Cassiopeia Clusters
Tour 4 Deep Water Constellations
9.
Winter
Tour 1 M78: Return of the Hunter
Tour 2 Challenges for Deep Winter
Nights
Tour 3 A Surprise Planetary
Tour 4 Winter's Eskimo
Tour 5 One for the Road
Although
I have not owned this book for an entire year, so far Winter and Spring has
brought tons of new objects, such as NGC 2438, that either I didn't know
existed or didn't think I'd be able to view from my suburban location. The
author's techniques discussed in the first section have also assisted in
bringing out detail in objects I once thought were boring, such as M3. This
book is written for beginner's with some experience and can be useful to
intermediate amateurs who might not be getting the most from their telescopes
due to light pollution issues within the urban setting. Turn Left At Orion has been my favorite
Astronomy book since I became
interested in "serious" astronomy, yet The Urban Astronomer's Guide may have
taken it's place at the top of my list.
After reading The Urban
Astronomer's Guide, Turn Left at
Orion seems outdated in its descriptions of
objects from urban viewing sessions and lack of techniques and equipment
discussions. Part II in particular
I've found invaluable and it will definitely keep me coming back for years to
come.
- joe2chillo and lxeth like this
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