It’s at opposition on November 3, when it rises at sunset and by midnight it’s near the meridian (due south, if you live in the northern hemisphere). In the pages of this guidebook you’ll find everything that you need to know to begin enjoying astronomy as a hobby. It takes the approach of identifying a primary object such as the Orion Nebula (M42) then hops to other stuff in its locality; like M43; NGC 1980; NGC1981; the Trapesium; multiple star systems, Sigma Orionis, Striven 761; then examines doubles and individual stars. This year, we’re looking from a direction about 3° north of the plane of Jupiter’s equator, so the Galilean moons appear to travel on slightly oval (rather than straight) paths. I happened to read a pdf version checked out of the library and I don't recommend that format for this book.

In this book the authors show you how to know where to find and where to look for whatever you can find within the range of the light gathering capabilities of your scope as you direct it to your eye. While thousands of telescopes are purchased every year, many end up being used just once or twice before they’re forgotten. There is only a chapter's worth of true reading -- maybe 15% of the book -- but much of that is the information that unfortunately didn't come with the telescope itself. 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).The book is filled with useful charts and has some diagrams not found in other works, including seasonal maps of the Moon’s surface.

It offers lots of information about each celestial object in the sky, how to find it and what to expect it to look like through both a telescope and binoculars.If accurately aligned (I use Starsense) you don't need to fiddle with HC slews as GoTo each is precise. Each section stars with a two-page planisphere-type view that includes only the very brightest stars.

You see the Moon, planets, and others as they appear in a small telescope of 50-70 mm or 2 to 3 inches in diameter. The authors also stay away from the RA/Dec notation for locations that can be so confusing to beginners (in the introduction one of the authors explains his first observing session under the guidance of the other author and that they are trying to reproduce the less confusing way he was shown at that time). This book has all the great sites to see in the sky, with drawings that ACTUALLY LOOK LIKE WHAT YOU WILL SEE. In the US in the 1960s there then flared a national discussion filled with concern that Americans were becoming spectators as opposed to participants. Davis is a professor of geophysics in the Department of Earth and Space Sciences at Stony Brook University, New York.The cover may have some limited signs of wear but the pages are clean, intact and the spine remains undamaged. Many people yearn to know more about the universe and love the idea of purchasing a telescope to stargaze in their backyard.