71 replies to this topic

[Arkade]

Hi, has anyone purchased this book? I have read reviews but don't take Amazon reviews too serious.
Does anyone have anything to say regarding this,like their opinion etc. thank you

I have ADHD so find it hard to concentrate , so looking for something easier to read

[Dave Mitsky]

Along with Nightwatch, Turn Left at Orion is the most commonly recommended book for novice amateur astronomers.

 

You may want to have a look at https://www.cambridge.org/turnleft/ to get an idea of what the book is like.

[Don W]

Excellent starter book. I have met the author.

[scanner97]

It's a very good book; I just gave my 2nd ed away.

 

If you have binoculars, a small refractor, or a modest dob, it will help you select and find targets of interest.  Very high on the list of best starters for someone jumping into visual. 

 

And +1 for Nightwatch as well.

Edited by scanner97, 11 June 2025 - 03:31 PM.

[billywjackson]

I really like this book. I bought it a couple of years ago when I was able to really get back into astronomy, and it has been very helpful. The descriptions are very good, and give a great idea of what you can actually see. I am slowly working my way through it. with quit a few side trips. Coupled with a good atlas (I bought S&T's Jumbo pocket atlas), or a good planetarium program such as Stellarium, it will be really helpful.

[Arkade]

Along with Nightwatch, Turn Left at Orion is the most commonly recommended book for novice amateur astronomers.

You may want to have a look at https://www.cambridge.org/turnleft/ to get an idea of what the book is like.

Thanks I will take a look

[Spile]

Highly recommended and I would say an essential purchase for any visual observer. Its uniqueness is its realistic representation of DSO’s but it’s also full of useful information.

[Arkade]

Excellent starter book. I have met the author.

Very cool, I think he is the guy on YouTube , from Canada I think. I like his channel

[vtornado]

Hello,  For "ME"  I think the book is excellent.

 

The book is basically a list of targets broken up by season.  Targets are rated by how beautiful they are and how dark the skies should be to see them.  The book then gives you star hopping directions on how to get to them from a bright star jump off point.  There is a  sky view and a finder view of the objects.

 

I bought my copy off of ebay used.   It is a hard bound library pull.    It is an old edition, but nothing materially changes in it.  I got it for a no brainer price, I think i got it for less than $20.00 shipped.

 

Because people learn differently what works for me, might not work for you.   Before I bought the book I checked it out of my local library and perused it for 2 weeks.  If your library doesn't have it, it can be gotten through inter-library loan.

 

If you can use stellarium and can make your own hops, and have a good target list, you may not need it.

 

Some of our club members have the spiral bound edition and I find that easier to use in the field.

Edited by vtornado, 11 June 2025 - 03:39 PM.

[Arkade]

I really like this book. I bought it a couple of years ago when I was able to really get back into astronomy, and it has been very helpful. The descriptions are very good, and give a great idea of what you can actually see. I am slowly working my way through it. with quit a few side trips. Coupled with a good atlas (I bought S&T's Jumbo pocket atlas), or a good planetarium program such as Stellarium, it will be really helpful.

Very cool!

[Arkade]

Hello, For "ME" I think the book is excellent.

The book is basically a list of targets broken up by season. Targets are rated by how beautiful they are and how dark the skies should be to see them. The book then gives you star hopping directions on how to get to them from a bright star jump off point. There is a sky view and a finder view of the objects.

I bought my copy off of ebay used. It is a hard bound library pull. It is an old edition, but nothing materially changes in it. I got it for a no brainer price, I think i got it for less than $20.00 shipped.

Because people learn differently what works for me, might not work for you. Before I bought the book I checked it out of my local library and perused it for 2 weeks. If your library doesn't have it, it can be gotten through inter-library loan.

If you can use stellarium and can make your own hops, and have a good target list, you may not need it.

Some of our club members have the spiral bound edition and I find that easier to use in the field.

Yes the spiral bound is on Amazon UK for £25 , might get that actually

[Arkade]

Highly recommended and I would say an essential purchase for any visual observer. Its uniqueness is its realistic representation of DSO’s but it’s also full of useful information.

Sounds like the book to get

[Arkade]

Thanks everyone, a great help! Looks like I will be getting a copy

[Stretch67]

Great book. Recommended.  

[gfamily]

Along with Nightwatch, Turn Left at Orion is the most commonly recommended book for novice amateur astronomers.

 

You may want to have a look at https://www.cambridge.org/turnleft/ to get an idea of what the book is like.

I'm not sure about anyone else, but from that link I'm only getting text, with links to the individual images.

 

More helpful may be to have a look at the 'Preview' view of the Book on Google Books

 

https://www.google.c...OYC?hl=&gbpv=1 

 

Another excellent book (in my view) is The Illustrated Guide to Astronomical Wonders - which is like the next step to take after working through TLAO . 

This also has a Preview view on Google Books

https://www.google.c...wC?hl=en&gbpv=1

Edited by gfamily, 11 June 2025 - 04:10 PM.

[Dave Mitsky]

Excellent starter book. I have met the author.

I met Guy Consolmagno at NEAF a number of years ago.

 

Last year I met Dan M. Davis during the Black Forest Star Party.  I did some observing with him the next night.

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[Dave Mitsky]

(continued)

Here's a photo of Dan and his Orion Dob.

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[Dave Mitsky]

(continued)

 

He also had an Explore Scientific refractor.

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[Arkade]

I met Guy Consolmagno at NEAF a number of years ago.

Last year I met Dan M. Davis during the Black Forest Star Party. I did some observing with him the next night.

Oh my bad, I thought it was somebody else, a guy from YouTube who wrote that book. I think he wrote something like 100 things to see with a telescope

[Arkade]

(continued)

He also had an Explore Scientific refractor.

He has a good choice on scopes!

[rfcooley]

Hi, has anyone purchased this book? I have read reviews but don't take Amazon reviews too serious.
Does anyone have anything to say regarding this,like their opinion etc. thank you

I have ADHD so find it hard to concentrate , so looking for something easier to read

Arkade,

 

"Turn Left at Orion" is an excellent book. Also, you sound much younger. You might recognize the name H.A.Rey has also an excellent book called "The Stars" H.A.Rey was the author of all of the Curious George  books for kids. You are probably young enough to have read these or seen them in school. Rey was an avid amateur astronomer and he wrote this book for beginners. He explains everything in short simple to understand terms and explanation that his Curious George series did for kids. It has lots of illustrations and charts that I find still useful.  I teach beginning visual astronomy on a High School and College level and this is one of the books along with "Turn Left at Orion" I encourage people to purchase.

 

I understand the dilemma with ADHD.  I have severe ADD without the HD. Only difference is that I am knocking at the door of 70. They didn't know about ADD when I was in school. As a result I did not do well in school. To many things distracted me. I barely graduated High School and ended up in mechanical trades (cars, aircraft, heavy equipment and custom machining). When my son, now 42, began to have trouble in early elementary school ADD/ADHD was just being researched and discovered. He qualified for a research project out of Harvard Medical School dealing with ADD/ADHD. It was a landmark research project and brought to the fore front the difficulties with ADD/ADHD, the causes and effects. My son was also severe ADD so they wanted to test me and they did. I became part of a research project for Adults with ADD/ADHD.  It explained a lot about my dismal school experience. Once I understood the condition I was able to go to college at 35 years old. in 9 years I got my Bachelors, Masters and Doctorate with a 4.1 GPA. I barely got a C in High School. Don't let them label you or tell you, "You can't do this or that." I heard it a lot.( I still can't do advance math) but I have calculators and friends that are physicists and mathematicians they can and are more than willing to help. Forge forward with what you want to do. ADD/ADHD can be controlled with out the drugs. The drugs helped in the beginning so that I learned what focus was and how to maintain it.  You just have to work and understand how it affects you and know when it is. I am not a medical doctor. I am just very familiar with the difficulties only because I have been there and learned to adapt.  I still have it but I know when it is working against me. Enough about my experience with ADD.  I hope you might glean some useful insights. 

 

 

Clear Skies, Never Lose the Wonder

 

RF

[SouthernSkys]

I bought it being skeptical because on this forum it is mentioned almost as frequently as “the dob”. I found the instructions useful and the drawings clear. I use it to plan my observations and then take it out with me. It is a matter of a fact “go there, you will see that etc.”.

[Arkade]

Arkade,

"Turn Left at Orion" is an excellent book. Also, you sound much younger. You might recognize the name H.A.Rey has also an excellent book called "The Stars" H.A.Rey was the author of all of the Curious George books for kids. You are probably young enough to have read these or seen them in school. Rey was an avid amateur astronomer and he wrote this book for beginners. He explains everything in short simple to understand terms and explanation that his Curious George series did for kids. It has lots of illustrations and charts that I find still useful. I teach beginning visual astronomy on a High School and College level and this is one of the books along with "Turn Left at Orion" I encourage people to purchase.

I understand the dilemma with ADHD. I have severe ADD without the HD. Only difference is that I am knocking at the door of 70. They didn't know about ADD when I was in school. As a result I did not do well in school. To many things distracted me. I barely graduated High School and ended up in mechanical trades (cars, aircraft, heavy equipment and custom machining). When my son, now 42, began to have trouble in early elementary school ADD/ADHD was just being researched and discovered. He qualified for a research project out of Harvard Medical School dealing with ADD/ADHD. It was a landmark research project and brought to the fore front the difficulties with ADD/ADHD, the causes and effects. My son was also severe ADD so they wanted to test me and they did. I became part of a research project for Adults with ADD/ADHD. It explained a lot about my dismal school experience. Once I understood the condition I was able to go to college at 35 years old. in 9 years I got my Bachelors, Masters and Doctorate with a 4.1 GPA. I barely got a C in High School. Don't let them label you or tell you, "You can't do this or that." I heard it a lot.( I still can't do advance math) but I have calculators and friends that are physicists and mathematicians they can and are more than willing to help. Forge forward with what you want to do. ADD/ADHD can be controlled with out the drugs. The drugs helped in the beginning so that I learned what focus was and how to maintain it. You just have to work and understand how it affects you and know when it is. I am not a medical doctor. I am just very familiar with the difficulties only because I have been there and learned to adapt. I still have it but I know when it is working against me. Enough about my experience with ADD. I hope you might glean some useful insights.


Clear Skies, Never Lose the Wonder

RF

Thank you. I really appreciate your honesty, opening up so much . I am not that young, your sons age. I really enjoyed reading your thoughts and it is amazing what you ended up achieving, it is really inspiring.
It was a very heart warming reply, I think everyone else must have felt a similar way when reading it as I . Thank you so much !

[Pierre C]

...looking for something easier to read...

 

You may want to have a look at https://www.cambridge.org/turnleft/ to get an idea of what the book is like.

 

I think this is an excellent resource full of helpful information.

 

However, I found the table of contents, arrangement of objects in the book and index a little confusing to use as a beginner. Because of this, I found it difficult finding things within the book.

 

To get around this, I generated a table of all the objects by constellation. That way, I could choose a constellation to focus on for the evening, know all the potential objects to see in that constellation and go to the relevant page numbers to get the details. 

 

A table can be generated from the website (per Dave's post) by going to the 'tables' tab,  downloading an 'all objects in book' Excel table and rearranged it by 'constellation' (alphabetical).

 

Happy exploring!

[KrisKringle]

"Yes, fantastic book! When I first started this hobby, I purchased many books, all of which helped me understand what I’m looking at in the nighttime sky and how to use my equipment properly. Technology is always evolving, and these books need updating to keep up. I recently received my Homebrew HBG3-Relay and absolutely love it—this new technology deserves a mention in the Celestron telescope books."

 

My enthusiasm for learning and experimenting with equipment like the HBG3-Relay shows I'm totally in with this fantastic hobby!

 

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