Free Guide to Naked-Eye Astronomy

Tammy Plotner, president of Warren Rupp Observatory, writes "Are you looking for all the best of what's up in the night sky for the year 2007? Then be my guest and download my free e.book — '365 Days of SkyWatching'! (Brought to you courtesy of The Universe Today.) Each day is specifically geared to give you the best of what can be seen with the unaided eye, binoculars, and small telescopes and even has challenge objects for seasoned observers. It's beautifully illustrated and contains many special features, such as anotated lunar maps. Please feel free to pass it along to anyone in the astronomy community and enjoy!" For anyone who'll be in that neck of the woods (central Ohio) next October, Warren Rupp's Hidden Hollow event looks really fun.

Comments

SECRET TRICK TO SKYWATCHING!

[LiquidCoooled]

Even though the title says 365 days of sky watching, I feel I must let you in on a secret:

Wait until night time to do your sky watching, it will be better than staring at a blue screen ;)

Please note also, the police will not believe your story about downloading a book from the internet which told you to stand naked in the neighbours garden at 3am with binoculars and a camera (don't ask how I know this).

Re:SECRET TRICK TO SKYWATCHING!

[slughead]

Wait until night time to do your sky watching, it will be better than staring at a blue screen

Nonsense! You can see at least 1 star during the day.

For those who don't wish to click on the link, here's the article text:

Free Guide to Naked-Eye Astronomy
 
LOOK UP!

You'll need these

[chanrobi]

Although each day is fairly descriptive and tells you about a new object, it doesn't tell you where to find it. Here's what the book recommended:

www.astrosurf.com/astropc/cartes
www.fourmilab.ch/yoursky

The first one is a downloadable program, the second is web based. For the open source crowd i'd recommend Stellarium.

http://www.stellarium.org/

Celestia is also interesting in that it allows you to travel off the surface the earth. More akin to Starry Night pro. Not as useful to accompany the guide but fun to play around with. Also open source.

http://www.shatters.net/celestia/download.html

Have Fun!

Re:Fun Observing Light Pollution

[east coast]

Good luck getting your neighbors to turn off their "security" lights.

Well, now that I got my Red Rider 200-shot lever action air rifle that won't be as hard as it was last summer.

Re:You had me at "naked"

[WormholeFiend]

I'm with you on that one... if only cities would implement street lights and other infrastructure light fixtures that reflect light downward, they'd be able to use lower wattage bulbs and not only save lots of money in electricity, but give us darker night skies too.

I tried it last year

[Anonymous Coward]

I used the 2006 ebook and I can say that this is pretty good stuff. There is content for many kind of instruments: double stars that require a 12" to separate to interesting phases of planets visible with binoculars. Did you know that you can see the Saturn rings with a 4"? Me neither but thanks to Tammy Plotner I was able to look at them. Next time that you are awake at 2am, take 30 mins, the ebook and binoculars and let the universe unravel before your eyes.

You will want to upgrade your instrument after a few nights and you'll find plenty of tips on picking the right telescope in the ebook.

Re:Fun Observing Light Pollution

[dan dan the dna man]

From my local astro mailing list:

"My real bug bear are security lights. I believe that the government has
introduced legislation so that troublesome security lights can be removed.

About 20 years ago, one of my neighbours - Brian - installed a security
light over his garage. It provided no real protection for the house and the
only real benefit was to provide Brian's dog with some illumination for his
noctural pee.

And every time Brian's security light went on, oops, there goes any dark
adaption or time exposure. Discussions with Brian proved 'ineffective'. The
only solution was the one recommended by Patrick Moore - an airgun. He
could never figure why so many of his bulbs died so frequently and so
spectacularly. (They really do go with a fearsome bang!)" :)

WARNING

[LiquidCoooled]

WARNING: Do not look at the day-star with your remaining eye.

Specifically, do not use binoculars or a telescope.

Re:Wow. Slashdotted WordPress

[cpm]

Web page:
http://www.mirrordot.org/stories/d836baa0e91f81cdd 5e6e15dbc88fa61/index.html

PDF [Size: 23.3Mb]:
http://www.mirrordot.org/media/6eeaa081830de8a6476 656a76d6ae669/365days2007.pdf

Direct link to the book.

[Fraser Cain]

Wow, I didn't think this would get onto Slashdot. Anyway, I enabled WP-cache, so the server can handle the load now.

Here's a direct link to the book, just in case the server goes down again:

http://media.libsyn.com/media/astronomycast/365day s2007.pdf