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Best Sky Atlas on the market

Wailin

By Wailin
in Observing - Discussion

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Wailin

Wailin

Posted
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As the title suggests, I'm looking for a good sky atlas that shows the fainter objects not found on your average star map, eg witch head nebula, semies147 etc. I have the Collins Atlas of the Night Sky which is very good but id like something with more detail. Anyone no of such a book to recommend?

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Paul M

Paul M

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Wil Tirion set the standard back in the days before we all had computers.

Sky Atlas 2000 is mighty fine. I still have mine but it doesn't get look at too often these days.

Uranometria 2000.0 goes deeper though I've never owned it.

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damnut

damnut

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Hi There,

Commonly use Norton and sky&telescope pocket star atlas. Both well used, except when I had my 10" sct which was hooked up to a laptop for a long night. Though my favourite way to observe quickly with the sct was a widefield 30mm ep and just use it in alt az on the forks, rarely had to resort to a star map.

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crashtestdummy

crashtestdummy

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uranometria is only available from the US and it costs the same again in postage!!!i wanted this guide but wasnt prepared to pay $60 for the book and the same again for postage.

i have the cambridge guide to herschel objects.it has all the objects you could ever need and i doubt anyone will tick them all.downside-all the numbers are herschel numbers,you have to refer to the tables at the back to translate into ngc numbers.messier numbers and named objects are shown in the maps and the maps are amazing.stands up well to dew and frost too

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acey

acey

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If you want the "best on the market" of anything then I assume money is no object and quality is what you're looking for. The gold standard for professionally published star atlases is Millennium Star Atlas, now out of print but available from some book dealers for a couple of hundred quid. The following are all still in print and all excellent (I have them all, and use them all). In order of depth (and price):

S&T Pocket Atlas

Sky Atlas 2000.0

Uranometria http://www.willbell....tlas/atlas4.htm

Great Atlas Of The Sky http://www.greatskyatlas.com/

I have the SkyAtlas 2000.0 field edition (white stars on black background, unlaminated) and desk version. The desk version is beautiful but I never use it. The field version is tatty from heavy use but still completely intact - the separate sheets are useful.

Uranometria is in 2 volumes (north and south) and you need both - though I believe there is now a single-volume edition (but it would be a big book to use in the field). I never bothered getting the Uranometria Field Guide and have never felt I needed it.

Great Atlas Of The Sky is on separate sheets and I use it all the time now with my 12". It's great for galaxies (marked as NGC or PGC) but its coverage of non-galaxian objects is limited (e.g. there are no Palomar globs).

For free atlases the best is TriAtlas C, which I have also used - it has probably the fullest DSO coverage of anything apart from Millennium Star Atlas, and is what I used to find G1 (glob in M31) - but the charts are very cluttered in places, and Uranometria or Great Atlas Of The Sky are a lot easier to use.

Edit: I see that Great Atlas Of The Sky is now out of print. That leaves Uranometria as best on the market, unless you're going to count the second-hand market too.

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Wailin

Wailin

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Thank you everyone. I probably should have clarified that I'm not looking for one to use in the field, the Collins does the job for that. I'm just looking for the best atlas that shows all of the faintest objects that I can peruse at home on those cloudy nights! Sky Atlas 2000.0 looks very good, and has stars down to mag 8.5 which is better than most. Uranometria looks fantastic!

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r3i

r3i

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Thank you everyone. I probably should have clarified that I'm not looking for one to use in the field, the Collins does the job for that. I'm just looking for the best atlas that shows all of the faintest objects that I can peruse at home on those cloudy nights! Sky Atlas 2000.0 looks very good, and has stars down to mag 8.5 which is better than most. Uranometria looks fantastic!

For a paper based solution, yes Uranometria does look impressive but if you're on a budget, printing out selected TriAtlas pages is a very good alternative.

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IanL

IanL

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I still have my laminated desk version of Sky Atlas 2000.0. Indispensable before goto mounts came in to my life recently. Will probably become a collectors item in the distant future. I doubt we will see any new versions of paper atlases on the scale or of the quality of the publications mentioned above, gone the way of so many other things that technology has made redundant.

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Wailin

Wailin

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Well it appears the only way i can get my hands on Uranometria All Sky edition is to order from the US. I can order second hand Sky Atlas 2000.0 from the UK. How do these two compare? Is it worth ordering Uranometria from the US or should I go for Sky Atlas 2000.0 used?

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DirkSteele

DirkSteele

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I use the laminated A3 size Sky Atlas 2000 with the associated description book when I can carry it all about. Sky and Telescope Pocket Sky Atlas when I am travelling. At University, I used Uranometria which as already mentioned goes deeper, but I was less keen on the smaller charts with the issue of the book spine meaning near the centre of the book each chart would not sit completely flat. Sky Atlas 2000 is ring bound so no issue.

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moogoomonkey

moogoomonkey

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I use the laminated A3 size Sky Atlas 2000 with the associated description book when I can carry it all about. Sky and Telescope Pocket Sky Atlas when I am travelling. At University, I used Uranometria which as already mentioned goes deeper, but I was less keen on the smaller charts with the issue of the book spine meaning near the centre of the book each chart would not sit completely flat. Sky Atlas 2000 is ring bound so no issue.

Damn that looks nice too. Bit too expensive for my liking...

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Stargazer_00

Stargazer_00

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Where can you buy sky atlas 2000 laminated and a3? I'd like that as i only view really from garden andads good as pocket sky alas is the pages are a bit small quite often and you have to flick around pages alot. Would sooner have bigger dew proof maps or laminate that can be written on and noted upon and cleaned later. That would be perfect.

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IanL

IanL

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Where can you buy sky atlas 2000 laminated and a3? I'd like that as i only view really from garden andads good as pocket sky alas is the pages are a bit small quite often and you have to flick around pages alot. Would sooner have bigger dew proof maps or laminate that can be written on and noted upon and cleaned later. That would be perfect.

You'd have to buy it second hand, there are copies listed at about £100 on Amazon, or maybe lurk on eBay and see if you get lucky but I'd bet the price would be similar.

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