Astronomy Hacks: Tips and Tools for Observing the Night Sky
by Barbara Fritchman Thompson, Robert Bruce Thompson
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Book Reviews of Astronomy Hacks: Tips and Tools for Observing the Night Sky
Book Review: "To the Stars, and beyond!"
Summary: 5 Stars
Wife and I are both 75, have 3 'scopes, belong to 2 Star gazing clubs and we've read most of the literature available for beginners.
This is not a book for a cold winter's evening by the fire when you could be outside gazing at the stars. You will refer time and again to the various parts of this book as you grow in the complicated and facinating practice of Astronomy.
Star gazing is a very complex sport! The science of optics must be somewhat understood. Ancient mythology and foreign languages need to be appreciated. One needs to consider strained muscles, enduring long dark chilly nights surrounded by strange persons peering into canon like objects and speaking in cryptic patois with great delight and enjoyment all holding little red lights.
This book lifts the veil of mystery and frustration which confronts a newbie to the infinity of space and the plethora of equipment presently available to observe it. Complexity is respected but everything is laid out in a conversational manner that welcomes you into the circle of star gazers!
Assisting the beginner, enriching the amateur and supporting the more experienced observer is successfully accomplished by the authors. Beginning with encouragement not to be overwhelmed by it all, proceeding through field protocols and the choice of a telescope, they move on with suggestions for finding the stars as well as mechanical improvements for various kinds of equipment.
This hand book will carry you from how to behave at your first night outing (turn out the white lights!) thru your first purchase of binoculars, star charts, a first `scope and then the next! You can pick it up and find all that you need to know in one place.
Excellent precautions are raised regarding comfort and safety while out in the dark, the dangers of inexpensive equipment and the perils of over-enthusiastic purchase of hyped products you really do not need.
The authors are computer savvy and suggest software programs for both PC and Mac OS X machines. Their recommendations of handheld planetariums - programmed "Palms" or "PDAs" - is very specific and complete. The application while using it with a telescope is well described.
If you are looking to enjoy clear skys and cool nights, this will be your best investment in Astronomy's wonders.
CAB
Book Review: Great for many beginners, but not all
Summary: 4 Stars
Review summary: You definitely want this book if you are a rank beginner at star gazing and are _not_ interested in purchasing or using a computerized "go-to" telescope. Get this book now! If you don't fit this category, read on, as this book may still appeal to you.
"Astronomy Hacks" is an excellent introductory book for "hands-on" amateur star gazers, but there are some caveats of which the potential reader should be aware.
Oriented towards the neophyte (of the 65 hacks, 41 are classified as having a "beginner" level of complexity and only 4 as "expert"), this book provides a wealth of valuable tips and techniques that will get a beginning star gazer up to speed with a minimum of fuss. Add some at-the-eyepiece experience, and the new kid on the block will be expeditiously transformed into an intermediate observer.
The equipment-specific hacks in this book are heavily weighted towards the Dobsonian reflector type of telescope. Although the authors readily admit their bias towards this type of telescope, this bias limits the appeal of "Astronomy Hacks." Thus, if your potential interest in star gazing includes hunting down the objects you wish to view by referring to star charts and moving your scope from one field of view to the next until the desired object is found, and then, as you observe the object, manually nudging the scope continuously in order to keep the object in the field of view, then "Astronomy Hacks" is for you.
However, if you think you'd rather use a computerized scope that can locate an object you wish to view and then automatically track that object as you observe through the eyepiece, then most of the telescope-specific hacks in this book will not be applicable to your observing equipment. Nevertheless, many of the observing and accessory tips included in "Astronomy Hacks" provide essential information for any beginning star gazer, no matter which type of scope one will ultimately use.
The intermediate user of a Dobsonian reflector will find this book to be an excellent collection of all those great tips that have been encountered elsewhere but are perhaps half-forgotten. Intermediate users of other telescope types will likely find "Astronomy Hacks" to be less worthwhile.
Book Review: An excellent book - in spite of the problems engendered by the format
Summary: 5 Stars
This book is a collection of square pegs of different sizes, sliced and diced to fit into the round holes dictated by the format of the O'Reilly Hacks series. In my opinion, the "hacks" format does not work very well for this book, not nearly as well as it does for other books in the series. The problem is most evident in Chapter 1, "Getting Started", the contents of which except for Hack #7 do not even come close to any definition of "hack," much less the back-cover definition of "meaning innovating, unearthing, and creating shortcuts, gizmos, and gears." It's good material, but the format is a distraction.
This is a excellent book in spite of the format problem. I'm a long-time amateur astronomer with a fairly large library of books, and this book definitely fits into a niche that no other book I've seen covers exactly. There's a lot of material aimed at neophytes, but the authors cover it in a new and fresh manner completely unlike the tired rehashing of elementary stuff so common in other books. Better still, there's a lot of what I'd call intermediate material, much of it covering topics I've never before seen covered very well. Examples include Hack 7 on measuring entrance pupil size and Hacks 46-47 on using a Barlow (which covers the subject better than any other source I've ever seen).
Note that this book does not attempt to cover "what to observe" - it concentrates on "how to get ready to observe" and "how to observe." This is good - the books that attempt to cover everything end up covering everything in such a superficial manner as to be of little use.
The biggest downside for me about this book is the lack of balance between the wealth of material on choosing and using dobsonians and the almost complete lack of material on SCTs. Hack 9 "Choose the Best General-Purpose Telescope" acknowledges the problem thusly: "Just so that you're aware of it going in, we confess that we're 'Dob bigots.' . . . The Coke-Pepsi, PC-Mac, and Linux-Windows wars are nothing compared to the scope-type wars." Chapter 3, Scope Hacks, focuses only on dobs/newtonians in its eleven sections.
Book Review: Ridiculously useful
Summary: 5 Stars
If you are getting started in amateur astronomy, buy this book first. It's not everything you need--eventually you will probably want a good star atlas, a pair of binoculars, a telescope, planetarium software, and so on. But don't worry, this book will help you decide what else you need, how soon you need it, and what sort to purchase.
When I was 12 I got my hands on a telescope catalog and it really captured my imagination, but all of the telescopes were well out of my price range. So my early enthusiasm died on the vine. But I was operating under a common misconception: that if you want to be an amateur astronomer, the first thing you need is a telescope.
In fact, the first thing you need is a love of and interest in the cosmos as it is revealed in the night sky. If you are not willing to go outside and spend some time learning the constellations and observing some of the brighter objects with binoculars, you probably have no business springing for a telescope anyway. Buy this book instead. It's a lot cheapter, and it will teach you how to use sky maps and planispheres, how to predict what will be visible and when, and how best to observe the various objects you might be interested in, from the moon and planets to star clusters, nebulas, and galaxies. You'll make better decisions about what other gear to buy once you have some idea of what you'll point that gear _at_.
With a title like "Astronomy Hacks" I expected this book to be mostly a collection of advanced tips for seasoned stargazers. But in fact the book covers everything from your first serious look at the night sky to fine-tuning the performance of a telescope and how to plan and run a Messier marathon (an attempt to view all 110 Messier objects in one night). I'm glad I picked it up, and I'm glad I picked it up early in the redevelopment of my interest in astronomy. It saved me a lot of time, money, and frustration. I can't recommend it highly enough.
Book Review: The perfect read for star-gazers new and old...
Summary: 5 Stars
Robert Bruce Thompson & Barbara Fritchman Thompson have done a very nice job in their book Astronomy Hacks - Tips & Tools for Observing the Night Sky (O'Reilly). If you are just starting out, the first part of the book should appeal most to you. It gives you a solid grounding in the science of astronomy and how to find what you're looking for. For those who have some previous experience, the second part covers the more detailed things, like how to hack your scope as well as accessories that add to your viewing success.
Contents: Getting Started; Observing Hacks; Scope Hacks; Accessory Hacks; Index
I almost view this as a guide to astronomy rather than a hacks book. If you were to buy a telescope for your child, this would be a good book to pick up as an accessory. Hacks such as #1 - Don't Give Up, #2 - Join an Astronomy Club, and #6 - Be Prepared are perfect for getting off on the right foot. If you know what to do early on, there's far less chance of disappointment. Perhaps you won't end up selling the telescope a year down the road as "only used twice".
Scope and accessory hacks are where the pros will start benefiting. Obviously, you have to know what you're doing to benefit from hacks such as #38 - Tune Your Newtonian Reflector for Maximum Performance or #41 - Counterweight a Dobsonian Scope. But that's the nice thing about this book. It's not one that you read once and stash away, never to be opened again. You'll use it over and over throughout your astronomy "career".
Oh, and just so you're not disappointed... There are only 65 hacks here instead of the usual 100. Wouldn't want you to feel short-changed... :-)
Definitely a "must have" book if you're a star-gazer or if you have inklings to take up the hobby...