Seeing Stars

Seeing Stars is written for astronomers, regardless of the depth of their theoretical knowledge, who are taking their first steps in observational astronomy. Chris Kitchin and Bob Forrest - both professional astronomers - take a conducted tour of the night sky and suggest suitable observing programmes for everyone from beginners to experts. How is this book different? We are all familiar with the beautiful images of planets and galaxies obtained by spacecraft and giant telescopes - but what can you really see with a small telescope? What should you expect from a small refractor or reflector? And what is the effect of observing from a site near a city? The answers are all here, with many photographs that will illustrate exactly what can be seen with different instruments (everything from the naked eye to a 300mm telescope) - and from different locations.

1 Finding Your Way Around the Sky.- 1.1 Introduction.- 1.2 Constellations.- 1.2.1 Getting Started.- 1.2.2 Moving Onwards.- 1.3 Star Hopping.- 1.4 Positions in the Sky.- 1.5 Star Charts and Other Helpful Items.- 2 Your Telescope and How to get the Best Out of It.- 2.1 Telescope Designs.- 2.1.1 The Refractor.- 2.1.2 The Newtonian Reflector.- 2.1.3 The Cassegrain Reflector.- 2.1.4 The Schmidt-Cassegrain Telescope.- 2.2 Eyepieces.- 2.2.1 Magnification.- 2.2.2 Other Properties of Eyepieces.- 2.2.3 Choosing an Eyepiece.- 2.3 Collimation.- 2.4 Mountings.- 2.4.1 The Equatorial Mounting.- 2.4.2 The Alt-Azimuth Mounting.- 2.5 Optics.- 2.5.1 Light Grasp.- 2.5.2 Resolution.- 2.6 Cleaning and Aluminising.- 2.7 Dewing-up.- 2.8 Observing Techniques.- 2.8.1 Dark Adaption.- 2.8.2 Averted Vision.- 2.8.3 Seeing.- 2.8.4 Finding.- 2.8.5 Guiding.- 2.8.6 Apodisation.- 2.9 Twinkling.- 2.10 Finder Charts.- 2.11 Keeping a Log Book.- 2.12 Discoveries.- 3 The Sun.- 3.1 Warning.- 3.2 Observing the Sun.- 3.2.1 Stopping-down.- 3.2.2 Eyepiece Projection.- 3.2.3 Full-aperture Filters.- 3.2.4 Solar Diagonals.- 3.2.5 Finding the Sun.- 3.3 Solar Observing Programmes.- 3.4 More Advanced Work.- 3.4.1 The Prominence Spectroscope.- 3.4.2 The H-? Filter.- 3.4.3 The Spectrohelioscope.- 3.4.4 The Coronagraph.- 3.4.5 Solar Spectroscopy.- 4 The Moon.- 4.1 Introduction.- 4.2 Naked-eye Work and Binoculars.- 4.3 The Moon through the Telescope.- 4.4 An Optimum Telescope for Lunar Work.- 4.5 More Advanced Investigations.- 5 The Planets and Minor Solar System Objects.- 5.1 Introduction.- 5.2 Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn.- 5.2.1 Mercury.- 5.2.2 Venus.- 5.2.3 Mars.- 5.2.4 Jupiter.- 5.2.5 Saturn.- 5.3 Uranus, Neptune, Pluto and the Asteroids.- 6 Comets.- 6.1 Introduction.- 6.2 Cometary Orbits.- 6.2.1 Long-period Comets.- 6.2.2 Short-period Comets.- 6.2.3 Orbital Inclinations.- 6.3 The Structure of Comets.- 6.3.1 Composition.- 6.3.2 Coma and Tail.- 6.3.3 The View from Earth.- 6.4 Origins.- 6.5 Famous Comets.- 6.5.1 Halley’s Comet.- 6.5.2 Kohoutek’s Comet.- 6.5.3 Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9.- 6.6 Nomenclature of Comets.- 6.7 Observing Comets.- 6.7.1 Observing Information.- 6.7.2 What You Can Observe.- 6.7.3 Discovering Comets.- 7 Stars.- 7.1 Introduction.- 7.2 Brightness.- 7.2.1 Magnitudes.- 7.2.2 Estimating Visual Magnitudes.- 7.3 Variable Stars.- 7.3.1 Observing Variable Stars.- 7.3.2 Types of Variable Star.- 7.4 Visual Double and Binary Stars.- 7.5 Star Clusters.- 7.5.1 Galactic Clusters.- 7.5.2 Globular Clusters.- 8 Nebulae.- 8.1 Introduction.- 8.2 Gas and Dust Clouds.- 8.3 Dark Nebulae.- 8.3.1 Introduction.- 8.3.2 Nebulae.- 8.4 Reflection Nebulae.- 8.4.1 Introduction.- 8.4.2 Nebulae.- 8.5 Emission Nebulae.- 8.5.1 Introduction.- 8.5.2 The Spectra of Emission Nebulae and Planetary Nebulae.- 8.5.3 Nebulae.- 8.6 Supernova Remnants.- 8.6.1 Introduction.- 8.6.2 Nebulae.- 8.7 Planetary Nebulae.- 8.7.1 Introduction.- 8.7.2 Nebulae.- 9 Galaxies.- 9.1 Introduction.- 9.2 Spiral Galaxies.- 9.2.1 Observing Spiral Galaxies.- 9.3 Elliptical Galaxies.- 9.4 Irregular Galaxies.- 9.5 Quasars, Seyfert Galaxies and Other Active Galaxies.- 10 Unaided Observations.- 10.1 Introduction.- 10.2 The Moon.- 10.3 The Sun.- 10.4 Meteors.- 10.5 The Milky Way, the Zodiacal Light and Aurorae.- 10.6 Comets and Planets.- 10.7 Spacecraft.- 10.8 UFOs.- 11 Advanced Work.- 11.1 Introduction.- 11.2 Nebular and Light-pollution Filters.- 11.2.1 Introduction.- 11.2.2 Nebular Filters.- 11.2.3 Light-pollution Filters.- 11.2.4 Comet Filters.- 11.2.5 Practical Considerations.- 11.3 Colour Filters.- 11.3.1 Introduction.- 11.3.2 Types and Fittings.- 11.3.3 Planetary Observations.- 11.3.4 Imaging.- 11.3.5 Tri-colour Imaging.- 11.4 Photography with Your Telescope.- 11.4.1 Introduction.- 11.4.2 Piggyback Photography.- 11.4.3 Cameras for Telescopes.- 11.4.4 Focal Plane Photography through the Telescope.- 11.4.5 Using Telecompressors.- 11.4.6 Use of a Tele-extender for Eyepiece Projection.- 11.4.7 Guiding.- 11.4.8 Choice of Film and Processing.- 11.4.9 Projects.- 11.5 CCDs.- 11.5.1 Introduction.- 11.5.2 Camcorders.- 11.5.3 Purpose-designed CCD Cameras.- 11.5.4 CCD Chips.- 11.5.5 Sensitivity to Light.- 11.5.6 Astrometric Measurements.- 11.6 Photometry.- 11.6.1 Introduction.- 11.6.2 Photographic Photometry.- 11.6.3 Photometers.- 11.6.4 Filter Sets.- 11.6.5 CCD Photometry.- 11.6.6 Observing Projects.- 11.7 Occultations.- 11.7.1 Introduction.- 11.7.2 Lunar Occultations.- 11.7.3 Asteroid Occultations.- 11.7.4 Satellite Eclipses and Mutual Events.- 11.8 Computers in Astronomy.- 11.8.1 Introduction.- 11.8.2 Choice of Computer.- 11.8.3 “Planetarium” Programs.- 11.8.4 Databases.- 11.8.5 Ephemerides.- 11.8.6 Images and Image Processing.- 11.8.7 Data Processing.- 11.8.8 The Internet.- 11.9 Spectroscopy.- 11.9.1 Introduction.- 11.9.2 Objective Prisms.- 11.9.3 The Direct Vision Spectrograph.- 11.9.4 Slit Spectrographs.- 11.9.5 Observing Projects in Spectroscopy.- Appendix 1: Astronomical Societies.- Appendix 2: Bibliography.- Appendix 3: Messier and Caldwell Catalogues.- Appendix 4: A Selection of Choice Astronomical Objects for Viewing.- Appendix 5: The Greek Alphabet.- Appendix 6: Constellations.- Appendix 7: Useful World-Wide-Web and Internet Addresses.- Appendix 8: Terminology.