Which is the opposite of the direction we are supposed to be going in in amateur astronomy and everything else. We are supposed be going paperless. However, I am experimenting with that opposite, temporarily at least. As I said not long ago, I will not give up my favorite applications like SkyTools, Deep Sky Planner, and AstroPlanner (more on the latter soon). Still, books appeal to the desire to simplify that has taken hold in me of late. Also, it is nice not to have to disconnect the computer and drag it outside. Why would I have to disconnect a computer to take it outside?
Why not just use my astro-laptop? I lost my desktop, a nice Toshiba all-in-one, the other day when its hard drive crashed.
Should I run out and replace it immediately? Or just tear it open and replace the failed drive? I wasn’t sure. To tell you the truth, I am tired of Windows. Tired of the constant updates. Tired of the frequent revamps of the o/s.
I didn’t much like Windows 8, and didn’t think I’ll like 10, either. I decided I'd use my Win 7 laptop as my primary computer while deciding what to do. Which worked, sort of. SkyTools and DSP run on the little atom processor powered thing, if not well.
Not well at all. “You know, Rod,” I thought, “there are still these things called ‘books.’” Books, star atlases, are a longtime fascination for me. I like maps, and thought it might be nice to use ‘em again for a while. The only question was 'Which atlas?' I've got most of the mainline atlases and decided I wouldn't mind buying one more if I thought something I didn't have would serve better. Buying a book, after all, is much less stressful than buying and setting up a new computer.
One thing was sure no matter which star atlas I chose, even today 'print' has its advantages. You don’t have to charge a printed book's battery, print atlases are relatively cheap, and they go deep enough for most purposes depending on the volume in question. Funny thing, too? Despite the supposed superiority of computer star maps, we are living in a golden age of the star atlas with more available than ever before. There are a couple of out-of-print MIAs, but you may be able to get even those from Amazon or Abe’s.
Before we outline what I have used and intend to use and what you might want to use if you decide to follow me, let’s talk about what we don’t want to mess with. That is 6 th magnitude atlases, whether the original, one of its reworked descendants, or any other book that only shows star down to magnitude 6. These works are OK for 10 x 50 or smaller binoculars, but that is it. They do not show enough stars to make star hopping to objects easy—or sometimes possible—even with a 3-inch telescope. Yes, I know many of us Baby Boom Astronomers have fond memories of Norton’s; it was for many of us our first serious book of charts. But do you remember how much easier finding stuff got when you upgraded to Skalnate Pleso (in some sense the antecedent of Sky Atlas 2000, youngsters)? This is a big step past Norton’s.
Pocket goes down to nearly magnitude 8 and includes 1500 deep sky objects. More often than, not, that is all I need, even with my 12-inch scope. Despite its compact size, the atlas does not sacrifice readability. The charts are clear and legible with dark stars on a white sky—which most observers find easier to read than the opposite under dim red light—and appropriate use of color. Hard to best this for 20 bucks.
Single downcheck? I wish the index of constellations were on page one. Other than that it is hard to find fault with Pocket. What I used for years was the Desk Edition. Despite its name, I found it more useful outdoors than the Field Edition, since it featured black stars on white sky, the reverse of Field. It was on heavy stock, and was never harmed by even my heavy dew.
The size is generous, 18 x 32, and with a limiting magnitude of 8.5 and 2700 deep sky objects, this has been my bread and butter atlas for years. As normally sold, the charts are separate, unbound sheets (the Field Edition is the same). I fastened mine together with binder clips which worked fine for years. You can actually take another step up, and buy Deluxe (or Field or Desk) with laminated charts. Frankly, I discourage that choice. The normal paper pages are heavy enough that they, as above, have never been harmed by my heavy Gulf Coast dew.
There’s one other beauty of non-laminated. You can write notes on your charts, a big benefit of paper.
You can’t do that with a laminated copy without resorting to dodges like grease pencils or erasable markers. My pick is “Deluxe, unlaminated,” which will set you back about 60 bucks and which is worth every penny. Is there anything bad to say about U2000?
Not really, other than the fact that at this level of detail you are beginning to push the boundaries of what is practical with a book. You probably won’t want to use U2000 by itself.
Doing that would involve a lot of page flipping whether you have the original two-volume edition or the current “pole to pole” one volume version (my choice). You use it in conjunction with SA2000 or another broad coverage atlas of your choice for close-ups when needed. 60 dollars will get you the single volume U2000, and another 60 will get you the companion “Field Guide,” which contains catalog data and object lists and is somewhat useful.
There’s no denying, however, that the atlas’ big draw is that it covers the sky three separate times, with each series going into more detail. For crowded areas like Virgo’s Realm of the Galaxies, there are three more series. You begin with “A,” which is comparable to Norton’s and is mostly useful for rough navigation, move to “B” which is your “Sky Atlas 2000,” and wind up with “C,” which is comparable to Uranometria, all under one cover. When you need help with difficult areas, the three extra series are there to aid you (though most of their coverage is invisible to us Northern Hemisphere observers). For me, Millennium's small scale makes it too confusing to navigate with under dim red light. Yes, the pages show the field visible in the C8, but it is mirror reversed, naturally, from what I see in my SCT—no print atlas can help with that. Even with a larger scale atlas to assist, it is not overly pleasant to use Millennium.
The atlas’ thin pages stand up surprisingly well to dew, but to say they are as dew resistant as those of the inexpensive SA2000 would be wrong. Most of you won’t want to take the Millennium plunge anyway. It is currently out of print, and used copies can sell for over 1000 dollars. There is an even deeper one by Martin Meredith, an insanely deep one, one that goes down to magnitude 18, for God’s sake. However, with a scale of 14-arc seconds per millimeter it is not designed to be printed out (the full set of charts would cover an acre and you would still need a magnifying glass to read them), and not printing out kind of misses the point here, doesn’t it? Still, this might be nice for someone who wants the depth of a modern computer atlas without running a computer program to get that.
I find Sky Safari Pro on my iPad Air to be the best atlas ever. Put the iPad on Airplane mode and the brightness down to minimum and the battery will last several nights. Sky Safari is like a more easy-to-handle H-B with nearly infinate zoom; and in Sky Safari, zooming in means the magnitude threshold changes (you set how you want that for stars and DSOs separately in the Settings). For star hopping, I don't consider this setup to be a computer but rather a back-lit atlas, because that is how it behaves. Uncle Rod, It's always been fun and interesting to read your blog.I'm always learning something. Your latest entries concerning visual observing and hardcopy sky atlases are great.
It's been my objective and passion to promote 'old fashioned' visual observing for many years also. About 25 years ago, it occurred to me that I needed more than just going outside, observing, and the next day having nothing to show for my hours out with the telescope. I started taking copious notes, but after a while, I needed more, and began sketching all of my objects with nothing more than a No. 2 pencil and a blank 5 x 8 notecard. My amateur astronomy took a great leap, and for the first time, I felt a purpose in what I had been doing since I was 12 years old. I try to make all of my sketches as accurate as possible, with no embellishment, but attempting to accurately to portray what I saw through the eyepiece. No rendering of a 'Hubble' Telescope image!
I then needed an outlet to share my work. I started a very simple astronomy blog a few years ago: www.rogerivester.com however, before that I co-founded the Las Vegas Astronomical Society, Observer's Challenge monthly report. Www.lvastronomycom/observing-challenge It is an international observing project that allows any serious amateur the opportunity to share their observations with others, and the report is posted on the LV site and several others, including my blog. We recently celebrated our 75th consecutive monthly report. I see my work now as something of value to amateur astronomy, mostly in an attempt to get folks to enjoy what many of us did during the age of the space race.
I could go on and on. The days when we would wear out those little Edmund Scientific catalogs, and dream about having one of those big and beautiful reflectors, made by Cave Optical. Unlike today, when most kids are only interested in a smart phone, video games and social media, and waiting 'with baited breath' for that next text message. Uncle Rod.thank you so much for your incredible blog, and sharing with the amateur astronomy community. What a great contribution you provide, not only with your blog, but with your books, articles and other.
Thanks for allowing me to share. Roger Ivester.living in the foothills of North Carolina with my beautiful wife, dachshund, and Persian cat. Life is good! My computer problems ended when my wife Debbie said.Hey.we're going to get a MacBook Pro. That was three years ago. Being a person who never likes to change anything, I reluctantly went kicking and screaming to the Apple Store.
Maybe this is the reason I could never go beyond astro-sketching with a No. No I love sketching and notes. Back to computers: It took both of us a couple of months to really get used to the new system, but when we did.wow! What a revolution. Our previous and latest two 'big name' Window notebooks, seemed to last only two or three years each, with tow many problems to list. With the Macbook Pro.
No more virus problems, no more.every time we seemingly opened up our Windows units, it was time to update the virus protection. Another beauty is the integration between a Macbook or iMac, an iPhone, and an iPad-mini which we like much better than an iPad, due to the more convenient size. Never would I have thought I would want to go MacBook. I known 'too' many of my friends and others that can share a similar experience to what Debbie and I have experienced. Singing praises for an Apple. Our seemingly daily computer problems ended three years ago when we changed to a MacBook Pro. BTW, Uncle Rod, I know you are an Engineer.
I'm a retired Textile Industrial Engineer after 30 years. Roger and Debbie Ivester. Despite being a high-tech software developer, I'm surprisingly old-fashioned in other areas myself. I don't worship technology - I only use it when I find it useful. And I agree that the continual Microsoft/others software/OS upgrades that complicate my life and provide very little new value for me are not necessarily a 'good thing' in my book.
Out under the stars, I don't yet use a computer. Though I am currently trying a (non-computer) dual-Mallincam setup that does add a lot of value but unfortunately at a serious complexity cost too. My own primary tool is the S&T Pocket Sky Atlas. It's cheap so I buy a bunch of copies of it, and then customize a copy for each of my observing lists, marking up each page with the list items on that page. Then i'll work through one or more pages in a given observing session. I've got a little plastic envelope I keep the atlas in while observing.
However it's a slow process customizing the S&T atlas, because ink dries very slowly on those semi-water-resistant pages. You mark up a page, trying real carefully not to smear anything, and then set it aside to dry for 30 minutes or so, before you can move on to the next page.
Millennium Star Atlas Hardcover
Skymaps.com: Recommended Astronomy Books and Products Recommended Books & Products In association with our trusted partner, Skymaps.com/store - Recommended Books & Products for Skywatchers Category Star & Moon Atlases In Association with Amazon.com - Earth's Biggest Selection! SUPER SAVER SHIPPING: Get FREE shipping on Amazon orders over $35 Comparison of Current Printed Star Atlases & Maps Level: Beginner Intermediate Advanced Star Atlas Mag. Stars Objects Charts Scale (mm/deg) RRP 50th Ed., 1992 by Levitt and Marshall 4.5.