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If I wanted a large page star map atlas/book, which would you recommend? What I’d like it for is when I take an image and print it off, I can place it near the map and make a quick comparison – at the right orientation. I even try printing onto acetate film and overlaying onto a printed map (if I can match the scale size and aspect ratio in the PC). I find rotating a paper or book easier than trying to compare my image on screen with a map on the PC (star program or one of the resources such as World Wide Telescope) – usually one window ends up closing unless I resize it. Besides, it is convenient to flick through a few pages of a book’s maps. Uranometria comes to mind, down to mag 9.75. But I’m confused as to whether I would need volumes 1, 2 and 3, or just volume 3. I think there is a companion book that goes with it, but unsure if it’s essential to get the companion as well (which I can’t remember its title offhand).
I have an old eighties copy of Norton’s Star Atlas, which I still use. But because of a printing error, it contains some duplicate maps and some are missing. I didn’t spot that until sometime after buying. I also have Turn Left at Orion. PC programs: Stellarium, C2A and Aladin Lite. Thank you.
How about Wil Tirion’s Sky Atlas 2000.0, 2ed Edition? I fear it may be becoming a collector’s item, though: second hand copies on Amazon seem to start around £50 and go up to silly prices. I picked up a copy a few years ago and I don’t remember it being that expensive.
I really like my Sky and Telescope Pocket Sky Atlas – you could get the Jumbo version which is simply larger format. I also have the Cambridge Star Atlas fourth edition by Wil Tirion. If you want me to send you representative pics of the charts, let me know.
Cambridge goes to lim 6.5, S&T to 7.6. You mention an atlas which goes deeper, so these may not meet your requirements.
My current favourite star atlas is the interstellarum Deep Sky Atlas
See: www.deep-sky-atlas.com
Its available from Amazon and other places – it is a bit expensive, but it is a really nice, easy to use atlas.
Callum
There are a few, some:
The Cambridge Star Atlas (2011), copies available for under £10.
Uranometria 2000 volume 1 (1987), copies available for £25.
Sky Atlas 2000.0 (1985), cheapest seems to be about £40 but it is lovely.
Star Atlas of Reference Stars and Non-stellar Objects (1969), copies £50.
Interstellarum Deep Sky Atlas: Desk Edition (2014), copies £65 or so.
Millennium Star Atlas 3 Volume Boxed Set (2006), £600 or so…
The first two are fine; you can probably find a way to look at them all inside online somewhere. I really do like Stellarium though which is usually my first port of call, with all the added star databases loaded in.
No need to stick with your copy except for sentimental reasons. Second-hand copies are dirt cheap. I’ve five different editions in the library, none of which cost me more than a few pounds. The first (1910) edition was was given to me by a friend whose astronomer father had died recently. It’s been well-used for the last century and ought to be re-bound professionally.
If you wish I can put you in contact with a guy who is down-sizing his library and from whom I bought the Tycho catalogue. He had a copy of Hans Vehrenberg’s “Photographischer Stern-Atlas” which goes down to mag 14 or so. Don’t know whether it is still for sale.
I don’t have this one, but I do have the full 17-volume Tycho & Hipparcos catalogue which I picked up 2nd hand for £250.
The relevance is that volumes 14-16 are essentially the MSA, though printed at a slightly smaller scale. A superb atlas.
Incidentally, if you are going for Uranometria 2000, get Vol 2 as well. Otherwise you will be restricted to the northern hemisphere. Even up in sub-arctic Britain quite a bit of the southern sky is visible. I wish I had realised that when I bought only V1 and now regret the decision to save money.
Added in edit: just bought a “like-new” copy of U2000-V2. Thanks for prompting me!
I have Wil Tirion’s Sky Atlas 2000 (brought years ago when it was much cheaper), which I’ve found OK when using just a camera with a medium to wide angle lens. But with a telescope mounted camera there are often not enough bright ( mag >8.5) stars in the field of view, so I resort to Stellarium, not just because of the extra detail but also because I find it much easier not having to mentally convert black dots on a white background to bright dots on a dark background. Ideally I imagine a photographic atlas would be better, but I’ve no experience of one.
I don’t know if it’s do-able, I’m running on Linux, but it would be much easier if you could plug (say) a TV into the PC’s HDMI socket and display your photo on that while adjusting the Stallerium view on the PC screen.
“I find it much easier not having to mentally convert black dots on a white background to bright dots on a dark background”.
I almost always display negative images for comparison with (in my case) VS finder charts. A single simple mouse click.
I have a copy of sky atlas 2000 you can have for free if you let me have your address.
Regards Andrew
Thanks for those pictures, I like the look of those very much. Nice in colour too. Hmmm, I’m spoilt for choice here.
Thank you Callum. I have since read some really positive reviews of that one, including the quality and strength of the paper when used in field conditions. I had been focusing on that one. This is going to be interesting.
James
Thanks for listing those. I didn’t know off of those, but it will be great to have a look and compare. I do like Stellarium too, and like the way I can do on line search for an object such as an asteroid, that is not listed. But I can download the data and Stellarium can then display the object. That’s very helpful, and obviously not possible with books, but both have their advantages. Thanks for the list.
That’s very interesting. Yes, send his contact details. I have C2A which uses a number of digital catalogues such as UCAC4, and TYC. I’m not as familiar with it as I am with Stellarium. But hope to progress with C2A. The Tycho catalogue may be of interest in print form seeing as I have it that works in the background of C2A.
Brilliant idea. I have a TV and a 24″ monitor several feet from the laptop, but the laptop can be moved closer.
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