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Rating: 
Summary: Excellent compact resource.
Review: Although I've only had the book two nights, it's making its way into my list of indispensable resources. I already have a better star atlas (actually two), and Burnham's, but this book plays a different role. This volume allows you to conveniently carry useful and well-designed summaries of the particularly relevant information from those volumes, plus a decent quadrant moon map for when the big brighty is swallowing up the faint fuzzies. All in one book. I'm not going to use the charts in Norton's for nailing down the Virgo galaxies, but you can still find (and learn about) tons of deep sky and stellar objects using these maps alone, and I can still whip out Star Atlas 2000 or Millennium for really tough stuff. But I'm not taking either of those camping or on a plane: they're too big and they don't have near the volume of descriptive information included in this book. If you like an occasional quick trip to a dark site, if you want a useful guide for a walk from your hotel room or a gaze out an airplane window when you travel, or you want to know something about what you're looking at without plowing through Burnham's, and you hate carrying a library, this is the work for you. That said, can the publisher/distributors please cut the price in half so more people will buy it?
Rating: 
Summary: Just say No to this relic
Review: Forget this lame outdated atlas. For a beginner's atlas, try Wil Tirion's "The Cambridge Star Atlas" instead. This includes a similar limiting magnitude of stars, but plots many more deep sky objects (and gives many common names as well, completely lacking on Norton's maps). The graphics and printing are much cleaner in Tirion's tome, and deep sky objects are color-coded.The moon atlas in Norton looks like a bad photocopy of a photograph. And Norton's star charts go right into the gutter. Just try to get a look on Map 5/6 at delta Orionis (the westernmost star in Orion's belt). The Reference Handbook in Norton is OK, but beginners should try Terence Dickinson's "Nightwatch" and "The Backyard Astronomer" instead. Sure, Norton was great for its time, but who wants to drive a Model T today?
Rating: 
Summary: Complete, authoritative but too terse
Review: If one book could cover most topics in general astronomy authoritatively, its Norton. From recommendations on reporting celestial phenomena to specifying telescope characteristics, it seems the author grouped everything that could be of interest to earthbound amateur observers. Very terse in descriptions, Norton's is geared to advanced astronomers who require a reference or a refresher. For example, its star maps are not as clear as a Wil Tirion presentation, but it does not suffer from lack of completeness. For astute beginners, the book is very well indexed and organized, so an unfamiliar concept referred in one section is detailed elsewhere. Readers are rewarded with a book densely packed with information in under two hundred pages. I was impressed by the care made in the production of the paperbound handbook. Not immediately obvious is that the large page format allow charts and maps to present detail clearly. Tyvec-like bindings allow pages to open flat without distortion. I did not find any typographical errors. The maps, are not ideal for field astronomy use. Norton's is not light reading, but is encyclopedic in breath and style. For the 20th Edition, its editors should strive for readability, and garner a 5/5 rating. Marv Gozum, MD
Rating:
Summary: Ignore 1 Star reviews
Review: Just because this book isn't "pretty" is a lame reason not to buy it. The star charts are not meant so much for telescopic work as to give you a naked-eye reference. Sometimes, not having a million stars crammed onto two pages is nice. No self-respecting astronomer (apparently the 1 stars aren't) would be without this book. Heck, even the editor of Sky & Telescope uses it... As another point, the star charts only comprise about 15% of this book. The "Reference Handbook" is where this is a gem. The lists of objects to view interspersed between the star charts are invaluable as are the 100+ pages of astronomical information. If you skip this book because two reviewers gave it one star (while the others gave it a 4 or 5) you don't deserve it. Sure, the information concise, but when you're out at night, reading through fluff isn't what you want to do... This is probably a book to buy after you've stuck to the hobby for a year and know yo're hooked :) Clear skies! PS Never trust people who only buy things based on how "pretty" they look...
Rating:
Summary: Ignore 1 Star reviews
Review: Just because this book isn't "pretty" is a lame reason not to buy it. The star charts are not meant so much for telescopic work as to give you a naked-eye reference. Sometimes, not having a million stars crammed onto two pages is nice. No self-respecting astronomer (apparently the 1 stars aren't) would be without this book. Heck, even the editor of Sky & Telescope uses it... As another point, the star charts only comprise about 15% of this book. The "Reference Handbook" is where this is a gem. The lists of objects to view interspersed between the star charts are invaluable as are the 100+ pages of astronomical information. If you skip this book because two reviewers gave it one star (while the others gave it a 4 or 5) you don't deserve it. Sure, the information concise, but when you're out at night, reading through fluff isn't what you want to do... This is probably a book to buy after you've stuck to the hobby for a year and know yo're hooked :) Clear skies! PS Never trust people who only buy things based on how "pretty" they look...
Rating:
Summary: Room for improvement, but excellent nonetheless
Review: Norton's has weaknesses which other reviewers have pointed out, to be sure, but a tremendous advantage is its layout of the star charts. Unlike most other charts out there, it shows huge swaths of the sky (60 degrees north to 60 degrees south, and well over 4 hours in RA) just as you see them when you're out in the dark trying to get oriented in Deep Heaven. Other charts show little chunks of sky--Norton's shows just what you see in a great wide band from well behind the zenith to further south than most of us will ever see. And as someone else pointed out, the reference material interleaved between the sky charts, though not exhaustive, is very useful. I use Norton's constantly along with the Sky Atlas 2000 and Burnham's Celestial Handbook (and websites to update Burnham's data), and the combination of the three is perfect for most of my own observing. I have dozens of other books on my shelves but these are the ones I rely on. For teaching astronomy I substitute the Audubon Field Guide to the Night Sky for the Sky Atlas and Burnham's, and my students love it because Norton's helps them find their way around the sky and the Field Guide description of the constellations tells them about what they see. If I were stranded on a desert island (hope, hope) and couldn't take my beloved and well-annotated Sky Atlas 2000 and Burnham's, I'd take Norton's and the Audubon Field Guide as a very good substitute. I always recommend Norton's, the Audubon Field Guide, and binoculars to beginners--the Sky Atlas 2000, Burnham's, and a telescope can come later (or sooner, for the passionate).
Rating:
Summary: Aged like a fine wine.
Review: Norton's simply keeps getting better. Earlier editions nurtured multiple generations of amateur (and not so amateur) stargazers. This latest edition is a concise, complete atlas AND reference. The Sky Atlas 2000 or Cambridge Star Atlas are also fine road maps to the skies. An even better bargain is the Bright Star Atlas 2000 (Wil Tirion did all three and is tops as a celestial cartographer), but all lack the wealth of other reference information that is contained in Norton's. The style is definitly in the Sgt. Friday mode: "Just the facts". But there are so many of them! Page after page of succinctly written information on practical astronomy, the solar system, moon, deep-sky objects, etc. For an evening looking at the heavens, if you don't want to carry around the local library, this one volume easily suffices.
Rating:
Summary: The best beginner's star atlas
Review: Norton's was the first star atlas I ever used, 42 years ago, and it is still the atlas I go to for a general orientation to the sky. Over the years the maps have improved in quality, and the text has been brought up to date. It is one of the top two or three books I recommend to beginners in astronomy.
Rating:
Summary: Turgid and confusing as ever
Review: When I got into amateur astronomy 15 years ago, one of my first purchases, heaven help me, was an older edition of Norton's Star Atlas. As a beginner, I found the maps perplexing, hard to read; it was nearly impossible to orient myself in the sky by squinting at them and they were useless at the telescope. Fifteen years later nothing has changed; the reference section is useful if boring and the maps, though brought up to date, are still useless and hard to read. And why the heck the big price tag? -- the book is less than two hundred pages in length and not impressively printed. Any beginner would be much better served by spending either a lot less or a little more: less, by purchasing the Golden Field Guide SKYGUIDE at less than 20 bucks (which has it's own problems: it will eventually fall apart -- inexcusable for a "field guide" but the book is still worth every penny); more by going for Will Tirion's SKY ATLAS 2000 Atlas at $50.00, a work of art and a joy to look at, coupled with the SKYGUIDE, and later Burnham's Celestial Handbook, a labor of love. But not Norton's!
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