My first Magazine Sky & Telescope - 04.2019 | Page 78

BOOK REVIEW by S.N. Johnson-Roehr
A New Nighttime
Companion
INTERSTELLARUM DEEP SKY GUIDE
Ronald Stoyan and Uwe Glahn
Oculum-Verlag GmbH and Cambridge
University Press, 2018
Desk Edition, 264 pages, ISBN 978-
1108453134, $99.00, spiral bound.
Field Edition, 264 pages, ISBN 978-
1108453851, $215.00, spiral bound.
AS A WISE SAGE (or perhaps Alexander
Graham Bell) once said, preparation
is the key to success. This is as true for
observing as any other endeavor. Of
course, there are nights when a clear sky
coincides with some unexpected free
hours, and others when well-conceived
plans need to be abandoned due to
weather. But I like to set up my telescope
with at least some idea of
what I’ll look at that night.
I draw on many references,
both digital and hard copy,
when I compose my observing
lists, so I’m always happy see
a new book or celestial atlas
made available.
The interstellarum Deep
Sky Guide by Ronald Stoyan
and Uwe Glahn is a useful
and welcome addition to my
bookshelves. Designed as a
companion to the interstel-
larum Deep Sky Atlas (S&T:
August 2015, p. 57), the Deep Sky Guide
is a compendium of images, sketches,
and short descriptions covering about
2,400 deep-sky objects visible with
scopes as small as 4 inches (100 mm).
Like the Deep Sky Atlas, the Deep Sky
Guide covers a wide variety of objects,
including some truly obscure nebulae,
galaxies, and quasars. To give observers
an idea of how objects will appear in the
eyepiece, the authors have selected more
76
A PR I L 2 019 • SK Y & TELESCOPE
than 1,700 images from the second
Palomar Observatory Sky Survey (POSS
II). The images are well labeled and act
as detailed fi nder charts. At the eye-
piece, a dim red light cancels out most
of the red channel data on the page; at
the desk, visual observers need to look
through the red to concentrate on the
blue channel, which provides a closer
approximation to an eyepiece view.
One of the most attractive elements
of the Deep Sky Guide is its inclusion of
800 of the authors’ deep-sky sketches.
Glahn, who drew most of them, typically
produces what I consider to be aspira-
tional work: He shows what we would
see if we had the patience to study a
single object for several hours under high
magnifi cation with a large-
aperture scope. Most of his
results are out of reach from
modest backyard observatories,
but they may inspire observers
to match his tenacity. An aver-
aging of the authors’ impres-
sions and the POSS II images
gives a more realistic idea of
what small-scope users can
expect in the eyepiece. Large-
scope owners can embrace the
“challenges for big telescopes”
listed at the bottom right of
each spread.
The fi eld edition of the Deep Sky
Guide is printed on waterproof paper
and bound in a plastic cover. It also
comes with a durable slip cover, making
the book even sturdier. The soft cover
on the desk edition is more fragile, but
the paper quality is high enough that
it should withstand a bit of dew. Each
page holds a great deal of information,
with most of the real estate given over to
images and sketches, so it can be diffi -
p ASTRO ASPIRATIONS The interstellarum
Deep Sky Guide offers detailed sky views
through POSS II images. The real stars of the
book, however, are Uwe Glahn’s deep-sky
sketches. Shown here are objects found be-
tween right ascension 6 h to 7 h and declination
+6º to +24º.
cult to read the fi ne-font object descrip-
tions at the eyepiece. The descriptions
are rather short to boot.
The Deep Sky Guide functions as a
standalone reference book but works
best as a companion to the interstella-
rum Deep Sky Atlas. The page-number-
ing system and object designations are
the same in both books (M92 is always
called M92, not NGC 6341, and it’s on
spread 19 in both the Deep Sky Guide
and Deep Sky Atlas). Small diagrams in
the Deep Sky Guide show the location of
an object on the matching spread in the
Deep Sky Atlas. Even so, I wish more pre-
cise right ascension/declination posi-
tions had been listed for each object.
As long as I had the Deep Sky Atlas to
hand, it was a small complaint. When I
used a different atlas, it became a larger
problem. You may want to invest in the
Deep Sky Atlas after you’ve looked at the
Deep Sky Guide.
Amateur astronomers will fi nd the
Deep Sky Guide to be a useful reference
for observing sessions. There’s some-
thing here for practically any telescope,
and even if you just kick back and look
at the sketches on a rainy night, that
would be time well spent.
¢ Associate Editor S. N. JOHNSON-
ROEHR loves a good reference book.