Practical Skywatching (Nature Companion Series)

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Summary: If I could have only one astronomy book, this would be it!
Review: If I had to choose only one book on astronomy, this would be it. It contains monthly skycharts, magnitude 6 constellation charts for every constellation, 20 magnitude 8 starhopping adventures, and 8 pages of moon maps. In addition it contains a wealth of articles about such subjects as: planets, nebulas,telescopes, the history of astronomy, the space program, and explanations of a multitude of astronomy terms.

The book dedicates one or two pages to each constellation. Each constellation map shows the double stars, variable stars, open clusters, globular clusers, planetary nebula, difuse nebula, galaxies and quasars in the constellation and the surrounding area. The maps are blue background with the stars in yellow, and are easily readable at night. Along with the constellation map, there is a brief description of some of the noteable sites in that constellation. In the field you just need to find the constellation in the sky with the help of the monthly skychart, flip to that constellation in the book, and have fun finding all of its treasurers.

This book is a great field guide, as well as a great book to enjoy on those cloudy nights. Even if you are not a starwatcher, half the book is devoted to articles that will interest even the armchair astronomer.

For those who like a bargain, this book is like getting two books for the price of one. This volume is a compilation of the best of the books "Skywatching" and "Advance Skywatching". Each of these books is good in its own right, and now "Practical Skywatching" brings them together in one outstanding volume.

Rating:
Summary: WOW, This book is terrific
Review: Its packed with all kinds of information, maps, suggestions, etc. This book exceeded my expectations. A must have for anyone interested in astronomy.

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Summary: Superb update of David Levy's "Skywatching"
Review: The other reviews here said it all. Let me add my kudos. This book takes most of the previous (out of print) book "Skywatching" and adds the "Starhopping" section from the book "Advanced Skywatching". So you get the best of both books. Another beautiful and useful book. Highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: This is a information-packed book
Review: This is a information-packed book. It's divided in nine chapters, but in fact you can see three parts:

The first part, with text and a lot of color pictures covers the basics of every subject you can imagine regarding sky watching: Binoculars, telescopes, cities and urban skies, software, history, every planet, binary stars, eclipses etc. etc. etc. always in just two or four pages.

The second part covers every constellation in the sky, in
alphabetical order (one constellation per page), with stars up to 6th (I guess) magnitude, highlighting the most interesting stars, nebulae etc., each one of the included features has a symbol (in the text below the map) so you can know at a glance if it is to be seen at naked eye, with binoculars or with a telescope. I should mention that it also has a 12 general skycharts, so you can always use the one according to your latitude and time of the year.

And the third part ("the Starhopping Guide") are 20 selected sectors of the sky, including stars up to 8th magnitude (deep-sky objects up to 12.5) with text and photos regarding deep sky features, double stars, nebulae etc. etc. Useful: constantly the text points out what you can expect to see with a given telescope (4", 6", 8" lens diameter).

And I have some mixed additional comments:
-I think every picture has been thoughtfully selected (no pictures just to fill space, as I've seen in other books).
-The sky maps are made by Will Tirion (so you can expect that

there is what should be there, and nothing less).
-There is a small map showing the path of sun eclipses until year 2015
-The moon is covered in 8 pages, featuring some 300 craters, mares etc.
-I liked the section about "in store test" for choosing binoculars.
-I was a little bit disappointed that the "Starhopping guide" includes many features for telescopes with an aperture of 8", and up to 16"... (of course, this is because I have a 5" aperture telescope!)
-The book itself has an uncommon size: about 6 1/2" x 11", so it's still handy to take it outdoors, but large enough to include sky maps of reasonable size.
-I see that this book includes in few words a lot of information that I've read in more detail somewhere else. I wonder how this will be taken for someone who this is her/his first skywatching book. It could be preciously treasured for years... or it could bore the the poor reader: Who knows?.
And finally, at the price offered here, it's a steal!