Bartlett R.J. - The Easy Guide to the Night Sky: Discovering the Constellations with Your Eyes and Binoculars

As I was writing I came to realize that theres also a lot to be seen with just your eyes or binoculars. I originally intended this book to be for beginners, the folks who have looked up at the sky but dont really know much about the stars or what treasures might be found among them. I say originally because I think theres a fair amount of information that might be new to more experienced observers too.

Consequently, this book isnt so much about learning to identify the stars and constellations (like a book for beginners should be) but rather a book that takes you deeper once youve gained a little familiarity with them. Realistically theres nothing to stop you from learning the constellations using the star charts Ive included in the book, but that isnt the books primary goal.

My goal was to produce a book that would allow the reader to go outside at any time of year, look to the stars and then learn more about the visible constellations and the brightest stars and objects of interest to be found there.

This book is not designed to be all-inclusive list and its not designed to be a definitive guide. Ive tried to stick to the easier constellations with the easier objects, but some constellations may feature objects that are harder to find than others.

I particularly wanted to focus on anything that could be seen with just your eyes or, since many households have binoculars, what objects might be visible with a regular set of 10x50s. My goal was to highlight objects that were either easily visible with just your eyes or lay within the same binocular field of view as a bright star.

Consequently, many of the objects are easily found and observed, but there are a few that might provide a challenge once the easier targets have been sighted. Likewise, there are a few constellations that contain objects best observed with a small telescope the double star being a prime example. Although Ive mentioned these and encourage you to further explore the universe with a small telescope Ive tried to keep these to a minimum.

The book is divided up as follows:

In Ill discuss the different objects youll be able to observe and review the information to be found on the individual pages for the constellations themselves.

More specifically, itll show you how you can use these constellations to find others in the sky. If youre very new to astronomy, you might find this useful.

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The chart will show you the night sky as it appears at that time and also includes a list of visible constellations. The list is alphabetical but its not an all-inclusive list as Ive focused on the constellations that should be highest over the horizon at that time.

Next youll find the biggest section Ive focused on the major constellations and have provided a chart of the general area. The text for each constellation details its brightest star and, for many of the constellations, highlighted several objects of interest that are typically visible with either just your eyes or binoculars. (As stated earlier, some objects may require a small telescope.)

Nearly all the constellations will also have three smaller images depicting either those objects location or the view through binoculars.

Theres an that contains the greek alphabet and recommended resources such as books, software and Facebook groups.

Lastly, I want to say thank you to Stephen Marrable and Wayne Roberts. Stephen very generously donated his image of the night sky from Loch Fleet, Sutherland in Scotland for the cover. You can see more of his excellent photography at http://tinyurl.com/smarrable

Im also thankful to Wayne as he was able to spot a number of typos and suggested a few corrections to the text which helped improve its flow. Wayne has a Facebook group, Astronomy Workfile, at https://www.facebook.com/groups/astronomyworkfile/