What are YOUR BEST OBSERVING GUIDE GUIDE

[deepspacehunter]

Being a VETERAN OBSERVER (over 35 yers) I grew up on BURNHAM's CELESTIAL HANDBOOKS.... Then graduated to THE URANANOMETRIA 2000... and I now have (and enjoy immensely) THE NIGHT SKY OBSERVERS GUIDE (vol 1 and 2)... This is an AWESOME SET OF BOOKS !

[L8-Nite]

For all practical purpous, I enjoy the Sky Atlas 2000.0 and its companion book.  Last year I purchased a copy of The Great Atlas Of The Sky, and although a fabulous work, it reaches further than my equipment is capable and has more plotted than I could view in a lifetime.

Edit: My favourite guide, is an old copy of Olcott's " Field Book Of The Skies " ;  guess I'm just nostalgic. 

[rory]

I've not a lot of experience , but I found " illustrated guide to astronomical wonders" was very useful .

[avtaram]

Atlas of the Night Sky by Storm Dunlop.

Avtar

[StarSapling]

I know it is 40 plus years out of date, but I still love Burnham's Celestial Handbook, which I use with my nearly 30 year old Sky Atlas 2000.  With the small aperature instruments I use, they are all I need to put together my target lists.  When I have put the list together with the aforementioned resources, I then use online resources to get up to date on what is now known regarding the targets.

For Lunar observing, my at the eyepiece resource is The Hatfield Lunar Atlas.  If I observe a feature which is not shown in the Hatfield Atlas, as often happens, I make detailed notes, fixing the feature's location in relation to what the Hatfield Atlas does show.  Later, I use those notes to identify the feature using Virtual Moon Atlas

[Bodkin]

There seems to be a common set of experiences here.  I started in the early 1980s with the three Burnhams and got a Tirion Atlas when they became available in the UK.  I added a Uranometria some time later, but now use the two volumes of the Night Sky Observers Guide.

[bish]

I'm a big fan of the Night Sky Observers Guides - excellent books.

[andrew63]

They are excellent guides but far too deep for my use with my small telescope -  S&T pocket sky atlas is in continual use though !  

andrew

[Qualia]

Rarely use anything other than S&T or the Cambridge double star atlas, after a night's observing, I love hunting about the web learning about what I have observed and seeing if my sketches match those by others.  

[deepspacehunter]

The NIGHT SKY OBSERVERS GUIDES are Outstanding !

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

For me the Sky Atlas 2000.0 serves well, along with the Revised Shapley-Ames Catalogue of Bright Galaxies

[Marki]

I'm another fan of Burnham's Celestial Handbooks here. Just so much stuff all in one place - I know its dated, but its such a treasure trove of all sorts of information. Love it, and I often spend a cloudy evening just flocking through it. I wish there was a modern equivalent.

I also use the S&T star atlas in the field - compact and plenty enough detail for me.

[Marki]

Flicking through it, that should read (no idea where the flocking came from, I wonder if there is some weird Freudian slip thing going on there!)