Philip's Star Finder Book

[Dave1]

Hi everyone 

Here's a mini review of Philips Star Finder Book. 

So I received this book yesterday as part of the Philips Planisphere kit. I enjoyed reading this book quite a lot. It language is easy to understand and concise with just the right amount of information. They don't bamboozle with to much information. The explanations of how to use star charts is thorough. It has charts 1 and 6 cover the circumpolar stars both in the North and South, with direction arrows around the edge to indicate which way the stars move around the celestial pole. Charts 2,3,4,5, cover the 4 seasons. Charts 2,3,4,5 have RA and DEC, to help with navigation if you are using a telescope. Depending on which chart they go down to magnitude of 4 or 5. The different magnitudes are clearly marked by circle of different sizes. The brightest stars in the night sky are mark in true colour on the charts. Variable stars are mark with a hollow circle or just the outline of the circle if you like.

There is also a star chart for each month. They work in the same way as charts of 2,3,4,5. There is also a paragraph explaining how to use star charts to find the rough location of a planet. The planet in the book are Venus,Mars, Jupiter, Saturn.

It lists all the 88 star constellations with RA and DEC if you should wish to find them this way. The explanation of the celestial sphere is very clear and relates to Earth and latitude and longitude to help people understand.

It mentions in brief toward the back of the book in writing with charts as example about Galaxies, and mainly Andromeda, because on a clear night on a dark site it should be visible to the naked eye. It gives a clear explanation on how to find Andromeda galaxy.

It also had an explanation which explains star clusters, and how to find easy to see star cluster by the naked eye, namely the Pleiades.

There is also some star charts, and explanations on tips on how to star hop, and actually this section is very handy, it gave me a few new ideas.

Dave