Good Astronomy Books?

[Thinkaholic]

    Hello to all! I have been interested in astrophysics for a long time, and I am just starting to view the night sky (I've had telescopes before, but they weren't very good.)

   I recently recieved an Orion xt8 Plus, and I took it out, and it was fantastic! I got great views of Venus, the Pleiades, and various stars. I want to start finding DSOs and faint planets easier, as I had some trouble finding things like Andromeda and Mars. I know, I know, I could have easily spotted Mars and Andromeda through my finderscope, but the finderscope on the xt8 is, well, crappy. I bought a better one on Amazon. 

   For the Holidays, I recieved a butt-load of Barnes and Noble gift cards, so I'd like to spend it on astrophysics books and such. Are there any good book recommendations for finding faint objects in the night sky? 

 

Thanks!

[N3ptune]

If you also need an atlas, The Cambridge Double Star Atlas is a really nice one with many double stars and DSOs. I like it very much.

[gnomus]

Welcome.

The usual recommended books for helping you to find stuff are: 'Turn Left At Orion' and 'Nightwatch'.  I have both.

Good luck

[Putaendo Patrick]

There are three famous lists of DSOs which you might like to gradually observe: Messier, Caldwell and Herschel.

Charles Messier was an 18th century French astronomer mainly interested in comets and made a list of 103 objects he wanted to avoid! In its present form it now contains 110 objects. Sir Patrick Moore compiled an additional list which he named after his middle name Caldwell. William Herschel was the famous Anglo-German astronomer who discovered Uranus, but also produced extensive catalogues of DSOs - there is now a Herschel 400 list of the most important/interesting of these.

There are several very good books dedicated to these lists. I would start with Messier and take a look at: Ronald Stoyan - Atlas of the Messier Objects (Cambridge University Press 2008) and/or Deep Sky Companions, the Messier List by Stephen James O'Meara (2nd edition, Cambridge UP 2014).

Both are really books to read up on the objects in advance. A very good little star atlas to take outside is the Sky and Telescope's Pocket Sky Atlas by Roger Sinnott.

[alanjgreen]

You can't go wrong with "turn left at Orion " as mentioned above. 200+ pages of objects, directions to find them and sketches of expected eyepiece view.

its ring bound and is great to use outside.

as an example, it had simple star hoping instructions for andromeda and sketches of what you will see at the eyepiece.

Alan

 

[laudropb]

Another book that will help in locating interesting objects in the night sky is the Illustrated Guide to Astronomical Wonders by Thompson and Thompson.

[popeye85]

A good star atlas plus I just tend to use monthly astronomy mags- gives a never ending list of monthly targets plus a monthly star chart.

[johnfosteruk]

If you're interested in the moon I've just started read the Philip's Moon Observers guide by the late great Peter Grego. Highly recommend it so far. 

[BXRO]

Id agree with popeye85, go to starcharts.com and download their monthly PDF file. It has a monthly star chart a monthly events diary and a list of targets for the month and it's free