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review: Collins Atlas of the Night Sky, by Storm Dunlop



 
 
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Old December 1st 05, 08:40 PM posted to sci.astro.amateur
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Default review: Collins Atlas of the Night Sky, by Storm Dunlop

Collins Atlas of the Night Sky, by Storm Dunlop
Illustrated by Wil Tirion and AntonÃ*n Rükl
Street price: about $20 U.S.
ISBN 10:0-00-717223-0 (U.S.)
13:978-0-00-717223-8 (elsewhere)
224 pp, hardcover, HarperCollins (2005)

I'll preface this quick look by saying that I just added an entry to
My Own Personal FAQ (link below) a week ago on astronomy books for
beginners. After a quick glance at the Collins Atlas of the Night Sky,
the latest entry into a crowded field, I might just have to go right
back and revise that entry.

Dunlop and Tirion have collaborated before, on the Firefly Deluxe
Planisphere, a thick and large planisphere with rich detail and lots of
information that puts David Levy's large planisphere to shame, for only
twice the price. Rükl is known for his spectacular lunar atlas,
recently reintroduced by Sky Publishing after a decade-long slumber
in the out-of-print stacks. Make no mistake about it, these are some
heavyweights in the uranography department.

Much of this information can be obtained elsewhere. The book contains
four main sections: an unaided-eye star atlas, a constellation guide,
a lunar atlas, and a solar system observing guide. The star atlas is
essentially drawn from the Cambridge Star Atlas, down to the same object
list format. Twenty maps cover the entire night sky to a scale of about
3 degrees per centimeter, with stars to magnitude 6.5. Hundreds of
deep sky objects are plotted and listed.

To my initial puzzlement, I didn't find a map key, as there is in the
Cambridge. I found it, after some searching, at the other end of the
book, just before the index.

The constellation guide, in turn, is quite reminiscent of the same
section in Ian Ridpath and Tirion's Stars and Planets. The difference
is that the Ridpath and Tirion book measures just 5-by-7, and each of
the constellations is constrained to fit on a single page of that book.
Here, each page is 9-by-12, and the constellation maps are given a
generous scale of about 2 degrees per centimeter. Stars are plotted
down to magnitude 7.5, so that the stellar density remains about the
same in both the star atlas and the constellation guide maps. As in
the Ridpath and Tirion book, each constellation is accompanied by an
annotated list of several objects of particular interest within.

Rükl's lunar atlas is drawn--hand-drawn, in fact--substantially from
his well-known standalone Moon book, although the descriptions of each
sector are given here in a more narrative style, rather than the spare,
feature-by-feature description given in his own book. This makes it
more suitable as an introduction to the Moon, though perhaps less so as
a reference source for the experienced lunatic. Also, the scale is
smaller than in his own atlas, with the Moon being divided into just 16
sectors, in a 4-by-4 square. A pair of map keys is given on each page
of the atlas, with north up in both keys, but mirror-reversed from each
other, to suit those observing with and without star diagonals.

The last and slightest section covers solar system observing. A few
pages on celestial mechanics are followed desultorily by specific
advice on observing Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, and somewhat scantier
tips for Uranus and Neptune. Mercury and Venus are mentioned only
for the sake of locating and detecting them, and Pluto seems not to
be indicated at all. In some sense, I understand this, because you
really need a large telescope to find and identify Pluto, particularly
if you're a beginner and therefore the target for this book. Still,
I think it would have been neat to spend four pages doing a strip map
of stars in the neighborhood of Pluto down to the fifteenth magnitude,
and to indicate its path for the next five years. After all, the
section concludes with strip maps for the other main planets, as well
as hourglass diagrams for representative latitudes. Of the four parts
of this book, this one was the least satisfying.

I don't want to give the impression that this book is just a Greatest
Hits album for these folks. The presentation has been updated, and new
features added. Detail maps are geared more for the observer, rather
than the armchair astronomer. Instead of giving us the slow creep of
the celestial pole around Polaris, for example, we get the much more
useful map of comparison stars for Mira, the pulsating variable in Cetus
the Whale, or a map of the area around the galactic center.

Beginners will still need books like Terence Dickinson's Nigh****ch,
to help guide them toward the right purchases and, perhaps, to inspire
a love for the night sky. Once they have the bug and the tools, though,
it's hard to beat this new text as a self-contained guide to the night
sky for the novice. Definitely recommended.

--
Brian Tung
The Astronomy Corner at http://astro.isi.edu/
Unofficial C5+ Home Page at http://astro.isi.edu/c5plus/
The PleiadAtlas Home Page at http://astro.isi.edu/pleiadatlas/
My Own Personal FAQ (SAA) at http://astro.isi.edu/reference/faq.html
  #2  
Old December 15th 05, 03:13 PM posted to sci.astro.amateur
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Default review: Collins Atlas of the Night Sky, by Storm Dunlop

Thanks for the review!

Larry Stedman
Suburban Milky Way
 




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