A Visual Astronomer's Photographic Guide to the Deep Sky: A Pocket Field Guide (Astronomer's Pocket Field Guide)

How many times have you ́ found ́ a deep sky object (DSO), ticked it off the list, and moved on, or used the ́ Tour ́ function on your GO-TO ́ scope and said, ́ Oh that ́ s a just a smudge ́ or ́ Can ́ t see it ́ I ́ ll move on to the next one. ́ If this has happened to you, then this book is for you. It will challenge you to go back to the ́ smudge ́ and really look. Can you see the faint wisp or the detail in the southeastern corner? Can you see the small cluster within the cluster? Try to classify the open cluster for yourself. Compare it to the ́ accepted ́ Trumpler classification. Whether you have a GO-TO ́ scope or not, this book gets you to rediscover one of the great things that got you into this hobby in the first place ́ looking through the eyepiece of a telescope. So pack away the DSLR, CCD camera, the guide ́ scope, and laptop and open your pencil case! You ́ re in for some fun! Over the last 15 years or so there has been a huge increase in the popularity of astrophotography with the advent of digital SLR cameras and CCD imagers. These have enabled astronomers to take many images and, indeed, check images as they scan the skies. Processing techniques using computer software have also made ‘developing’ these images more accessible to those of us who are ‘chemically challenged!’ And let’s face it – some of the pictures you see these days in magazines, books, and on popular web forums are, frankly, amazing! So, why bother looking through the eyepiece you ask? Well, for one thing, setting up the equipment is quicker. You just take your ‘scope out of the garage or, if you’re lucky enough to own one, open the roof of your observatory, align the ‘scope and off you go. If you have an equatorial mount, you’ll still need to roughly polar align, but this really takes only a few moments. The ‘imager’ would most likely need to spend more time setting up. This would include very accurate polar alignment (for equatorial mounts), then finding a guide star using his or her finder, checking the software is functioning properly, and c- tinuous monitoring to make sure the alignment is absolutely precise throu- out the imaging run. That said, an imager with a snug ‘obsy’ at the end of the garden will have a quicker time setting up, but then again so will the ‘visual’ observer. This book is meant for observers who see a deep-sky object - either by star-hopping or by using a Go-To telescope - but do not observe it in detail because they don't know what to look for. It provides photographic images of all the objects discussed ... not just images, but images that look exactly like the visual view through the eyepiece of telescopes of various apertures. Visually, deep-sky objects almost always look quite unlike the usual CCD images published in astronomical guides. The human eye doesn't see color at such low light levels, and the contrast of extended objects (such as nebul Front Matter....Pages i-xvi Observing Plans and Techniques....Pages 1-4 Accessories and ‘Pimping’ Your ‘Scope....Pages 5-10 Sketching....Pages 11-14 Constellation Observing Lists and Photos....Pages 15-421 Observation Records....Pages 423-423 Back Matter....Pages 425-430