Turn Left at Orion: Hundreds of Night Sky Objects to See in a Home Telescope – and How to Find Them

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Tiny, grainy clouds of stars or hazy fields of light can become an awesome immensity of grandeur and delicacy.

Jupiter occulted by the Moon, visible in North America around 13H GMT, but it’s daytime and only 26° from the Sun). I give this book a hearty recommendation for the telescopic novice; you won't regret this purchase a single minute. Realize, at the outset, that the big glossies of featured astronomical goodies are not pinned up in the night sky.

Guy Consolmagno and Dan Davis’ book “ Turn Left at Orion: Hundreds of Night Sky Objects to See in a Home Telescope – and How to Find Them” was written to be a solution to these problems. TLAO is one reason I suggest that a person goes and finds a book that suits them from a number of suggestions made. Where's the fun if you are caught in the quick fix of celestial positions, a repetitious whirring of motors takes the scope wherever and then you look.

After tinkering not very successfully with a beginner 76 mm telescope for about six months, this book showed me what I was missing and gave me the confidence in myself and my equipment that I really needed. This is followed by another section on the planets (the tables on when and where to look are invaluable), before getting into the meat of the book. Detailed directions are given for finding each using the star-hopping technique, and the diagrams show what it should look like in both a small telescope and a decent-sized Dobsonian telescope, as well as some finder scope diagrams. Most people will probably look at the illustrations in disbelief; that is until they look through their telescope and the printed or online "fuzzy grey" objects coincide. Our tables are a good place to start your list; you can download them at Tables – what, where, and when to observe.Davis is a professor of geophysics in the Department of Earth and Space Sciences at Stony Brook University, New York.

Your post has me wondering if you are confused, and your info is flat out incorrect as mentioned by others. The 2nd is spiral-bound (good), but HUGE, even larger than coffee table-sized books (not so good, unless one has a large table to put it on while observing).Revised and updated, this new edition contains a chapter describing spectacular deep sky objects visible from the southern hemisphere, and tips on observing the upcoming transits of Venus. It completely transformed my expectation, but is perhaps of higher value to those with larger scopes (6" and above) as many of the objects will be tiny blurred smoky blobs in lesser scopes (as they are in reality).

It's primarily meant to be a field guide - to help you plan an observing session, or to read about the objects by dim red light while at the telescope. We are all initially lured by the magazines and other media into expecting to see Hubble type images. I've never seen a better basic guide to understanding telescopes - I recommend it to everyone with an interest in astronomy. After delving into how to use a telescope, the book teaches how to locate specific objects in the night sky, and how to use a telescope to see the Moon, planets, star clusters, nebulae and galaxies. It gives very clear and concise instructions about finding different stars, constellations and other astronomical sights.Mostly written for the northern hemisphere observer, 'Turn left at Orion', is set out through the seasons. It really is written and set out for the amateur astronomer with binoculars or a 3 inch refracting scope in mind, and is an excellent aid to go star hopping and locate the feint fuzzies of galaxies, star clusters and nebulae. In the US in the 1960s there then flared a national discussion filled with concern that Americans were becoming spectators as opposed to participants. There are more than 500 illustrations included in the book, and the text and images are all intuitively arranged, so you can quickly flip to the information you need when you are out stargazing.