69 replies to this topic

[Awesomelenny]

4 books....hmmmm...Harry Potter novels, right??

[Amalia]

4 books....hmmmm...Harry Potter novels, right??

Yes, "Harry Potter gets lost in Deep Sky",
"Harry Potter and the Green-Eyed Galaxy",
"How Harry Potter met Amalia behind the Seven Stars" and
"Harry Potter's long ride home from Quasar 3C273"...


Seriously now: I have been searching in two books for the best suited
celestial objects for beginners / or user of smaller scopes, looking
about all at surface brightness (instead of total brightness) and rating the objects.
I have controlled this by using two, sometimes three other books and
a little bit with my personal experience.

For the double stars I have been totally relying on the books, as my favorite-list
has disappeared since I moved.

That's all.

Amalia

[Olivier Biot]

Hi Amalia,

Glad to hear you're still alive and kicking

Many thanks for this list, it really deserves to be known!

Cheers (and go listen to the Call of the Mountains... which ones are you climbing?)

Olivier (who has not seen a single Swiss mountain for 18 months)

[Olivier Biot]

Hello Amalia,

In case you want some more review input:

• Row 57: epsilon Bootis
• Rows 226-227: not Monocerontis, but Monocerotis

Should you want the genitive and abbreviation for all constellations, then there's a list by CosmoBrain.

Regarding targets for small aperture scopes, there's one good printed booklet from the Collins Gem series. The old prints are entitled "The Night Sky", the new print "Stars". Both editions are almost identical, but the new has colored stars and some color images. See the attached scanned covers (left is my more than 10 years old battered "Night Sky", right is the new "Stars" I bought some months ago).

Cheers, and many thanks!

Olivier

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[gparkerson]

Thanks Amalia!

Your effort is appreciated and will enhance the experience of more folks than you'll ever know.

[Joel]

Amalia: very thoughtful and helpful to everyone! thanks for your work on this!

[Chris Schroeder]

THANK YOU Amalia

[rocksanddirt]

as a total newbie I really like the Idea of calling it the Amalia list and giving them A numbers.

Thank you so much for putting together a helpful list and info for everyone!

[Ronny Floyd]

Thankyou Amalia......and may your path soon find its way to a freshly fallen Moldavite stone from the heavens.

[Amalia]

Hi Amalia,
Glad to hear you're still alive and kicking
Many thanks for this list, it really deserves to be known!
Cheers (and go listen to the Call of the Mountains... which ones are you climbing?)

Olivier (who has not seen a single Swiss mountain for 18 months)

Hi Olivier!

And I have not seen any salty drop of the Atlantic Ocean since years!
I will be "climbing", actually more hiking, on two mountains near the Gotthard-Pass.
One is very easy, but the other makes me some heart beating...

Hello Amalia,

In case you want some more review input:

• Row 57: epsilon Bootis
• Rows 226-227: not Monocerontis, but Monocerotis

Should you want the genitive and abbreviation for all constellations, then there's a list by CosmoBrain.

Regarding targets for small aperture scopes, there's one good printed booklet from the Collins Gem series. The old prints are entitled "The Night Sky", the new print "Stars". Both editions are almost identical, but the new has colored stars and some color images. See the attached scanned covers (left is my more than 10 years old battered "Night Sky", right is the new "Stars" I bought some months ago).

Cheers, and many thanks!

Olivier

Thank you very much, Olivier - I feel so ashamed about all these errors!
I should have waited longer.

Thank you for showing me your books - I have about one meter of astronomy
books, but not all of them are really useful. Now I am mostly reading or the
internet or the Night Sky's Observer Guide. It is amazing how different books
tell about different celestial objects! Some objects are always here, but some
others appear only in one book. Very human, I would say

If ever I walk into an English bookshop (or an astronomy shop which sells it)
I will have a look into your book!

Cheers!

Amalia

[Amalia]

Well, version 11 is out - I have followed Olivier's friendly advice -
and have changed also some letters like " ü " and " ° " which did
not seem to be shown in the right way.

If you want to download it, it is in my first post of this thread now.

To save a little bit of my honour: I started with version 5...

Amalia

[Amalia]

@ Gary: Your words make me feel very happy!

@ Joel: You are very welcome! Thank you for answering!

@ Chris: When I get so much applause I feel like starting something new!

@ rocksanddirt: Thank you for your nice words! But, please, no A-numbers
as I already feel selfish enough having called this list Amalia's 200... :o

@ Ronny: Where? This would be too cool!


Amalia

[Bubbinski]

Thank you Amalia. I've seen a number of these objects for the first time this summer. But there are a lot more I haven't seen. I will be looking especially for the double stars and the emission nebulae, the ultrablock on my Mak makes them look really nice. And I will get M51 one of these days, I may try from a dark site. (Like a place our family has in rural AZ).

Justin

[Carol]

Amalia. As a newbie, breaking in a new scope, I was trying to decide how I would go about tackling the sky with some assemblance of order. Your list is a very timely piece of information, I am going to use it as a guide, and also keep a log as I go. By the way your assemblance of this is brilliant. Thank you for making it available. I live in a very dark place, so my viewing abilities are of superior quality. I can't wait for when you are fully recovered from this endeavor and give us more to chew on.

Carol

[Kenny]

@ Kenny: If you are "lazy and incompetent" (we all know this about you , BTW... )
there are two possibilities:
#1 Eat vitamines!
#2 Get a GOTO GPS (Global Positioning System) scope with AECD (Advanced Electronic Collimating Device) and ABCO (Automatic Beer Can Opener) !

1. I get all the vitamins I need from a steady diet of burgers and bacon. Remember, vegetarians don't love animals, they just really hate plants!

2. I already have a GOTO system. I did not think to buy a collimating device to properly collimate the primary mirror in my refractor, but since YOU RECOMMENDED IT, I will go out tomorrow and buy the most expensive collimating kit there is. Afterall, YOU ARE THE EXPERT! I don't drink, but if you insist, then I will take up a life of alcoholism too. Wow Amalia, you sure are helpful!

BTW, thank-you for the list - now I get to criticise it! Correct me if I'm wrong (I'm sure you will), but I think you left Albireo off of your list. This is the best double star. It is also easy to find and looks great in even the smallest of scopes. You will just have to get a year older!

Ken.

[Kenny]

Regarding targets for small aperture scopes, there's one good printed booklet from the Collins Gem series. The old prints are entitled "The Night Sky", the new print "Stars". Both editions are almost identical, but the new has colored stars and some color images. See the attached scanned covers (left is my more than 10 years old battered "Night Sky", right is the new "Stars" I bought some months ago).

For small telescope users, a great book is Turn Left at Orion.

[Mitrovarr]

Correct me if I'm wrong (I'm sure you will), but I think you left Albireo off of your list. This is the best double star. It is also easy to find and looks great in even the smallest of scopes.

Albireo is on there. It's Beta Cygni.

[Amalia]

Correct me if I'm wrong (I'm sure you will), but I think you left Albireo off of your list. This is the best double star. It is also easy to find and looks great in even the smallest of scopes.
Ken.

Here: Albireo, especially for you, Ken! A la carte:

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[Kenny]

Thank-you Mitrovarr. I really should pay more attention to my instincts before posting. Everytime I think I'm wrong about something - it turns out I am.

Maybe the list should be "dumbed down" for us dummies who only know certain objects by one name. Even my GOTO computer refers to it as Albireo.

Ken.

[Kenny]

Correct me if I'm wrong (I'm sure you will), but I think you left Albireo off of your list. This is the best double star. It is also easy to find and looks great in even the smallest of scopes.
Ken.

Here: Albireo, especially for you, Ken! A la carte:

Hmmmm . . . this doesn't look quite right.

The colour seems to be a bit off. You really should get a filter for that. I'm sure I can see a blue halo around the second star - do you have the world's first achromatic reflector? Also the stars are not quite sharp, so clearly you either have very cheap optics that are not diffraction limited, or you do not know how to collimate! :blah: :blah: :blah:

Thank-you! :flower:

Ken.

[Mitrovarr]

Maybe the list should be "dumbed down" for us dummies who only know certain objects by one name. Even my GOTO computer refers to it as Albireo.

Ken.

The downloadable spreadsheet attachment contains the proper names of most of the objects (including Albireo), although it lacks a few of the rarer names (the Blue Snowball nebula, Virgo A, the Cat's Eye Nebula, the Sunflower Galaxy, etc.)

[Amalia]

Thank you one more time, Mitrovarr!


Version 12: I googled all Deep Sky Objects and added many names -
found NGC 1528 to be mentioned twice - added NGC 1023 -
changed rating of the Barnard objects - and some other changes I
can't remember right now.


Tomorrow I will check the double stars - it seems that some are too
difficult (too narrow).

See you!

Amalia

[Amalia]

Thank you John, Carol and Don (CloudsInWa) !

I am still working on my list. Carol, I think there will be no continuation
of this list - let me explain you why:
Once an observer has watched his first dozens of celestial objects, I think
there will be kind of a specialization beginning.

So the next step after this list will be to move to the Forum of your choice,
where you will find other lists.

For instance in the Deep Sky Forum (my specialization) there is a monthly
"Deep Sky Observing List" - and there are Tom Trusock's "Small Wonders"
(the Small Wonders you will find in the "Article Discussions Forum").

And then there are several existing lists like the SAC 110 best NGC object list:
http://www.seds.org/...r/sac110bn.html

etc. etc. and , oh, the Caldwell list and...


I hope you understand.

Amalia

[Darren Drake]

I see Amalia You mention M46 but not it's beautiful planetary NGC2438. I hope you had a chance to pick it out of that crowded starfield.