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T HE PR AC TIC AL
A S TR ONOMER
WILL GATER AND ANTON VAMPLEW
CONSULTANT JACQUELINE MITTON
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CONTENTS
THIRD EDITION
Senior Editor Peter Frances
Project Editor Tina Jindal
US Editor Kayla Dugger
US Executive Editor Lori Cates Hand
Project Art Editors Rupanki Arora Kaushik, Francis Wong
INTRODUCTION 6
Assistant Art Editor Arshti Narang
Managing Editors Angeles Gavira Guerrero, Rohan Sinha
Managing Art Editors Sudakshina Basu, Michael Duffy
DTP Designers Rakesh Kumar, Umesh Singh Rawat
Pre-Production Manager Sunil Sharma 1 UNDERSTANDING THE UNIVERSE 8
Production Editor Kavita Varma
Senior Production Controller Meskerem Berhane
THE UNIVERSE 10
Senior Jacket Designer Suhita Dharamjit
Jacket Design Development Manager Sophia MTT THE NAKED-EYE SKY 12
Associate Publishing Director Liz Wheeler
Art Director Karen Self THE PLANETS 14
Publishing Director Jonathan Metcalf
WHAT IS A STAR? 16
SECOND EDITION
OBSERVING STARS 18
Senior Editor Peter Frances
Editors Frankie Piscitelli, Miezan van Zyl NEBULAE 20
US Editor Kayla Dugger
Art Editor Mark Lloyd STAR CLUSTERS 22
Managing Editor Angeles Gavira Guerrero
GALAXIES 26
Managing Art Editor Michael Duffy
Jacket Designer Mark Cavanagh DIVIDING LIGHT 28
Pre-Production Producer David Almond
Senior Producer Anna Vallarino
Associate Publisher Liz Wheeler
Art Director Karen Self
2 LOOKING UP 30
Publishing Director Jonathan Metcalf
Produced for Dorling Kindersley by THE MOTION OF THE SKIES 32
THE SKY AS A SPHERE 36
www.cobaltid.co.uk NAVIGATING THE NIGHT SKY 40
Editors Marek Walisiewicz, Kati Dye, OBSERVING CONDITIONS 44
Louise Abbott, Sarah Tomley, Robin Sampson
Art Editors Paul Reid, Lloyd Tilbury,
Darren Bland, Claire Dale, Rebecca Johns
This American Edition, 2020 3 OBSERVING AND RECORDING 46
First American Edition, 2010
Published in the United States by DK Publishing
1450 Broadway, Suite 801, New York, NY 10018 PREPARING TO OBSERVE 48
Copyright © 2010, 2017, 2020 Dorling Kindersley Limited USING BINOCULARS 50
DK, a Division of Penguin Random House LLC
20 21 22 23 24 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 TELESCOPE OPTICS 52
001–318755–Nov/2020
TELESCOPES AND MOUNTS 54
All rights reserved.
Without limiting the rights under the copyright reserved above, no BUYING AND SETTING UP 58
part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced
into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means GO-TO TELESCOPES 62
(electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise),
without the prior written permission of the copyright owner. ASTROIMAGING 66
Published in Great Britain by Dorling Kindersley Limited
A catalog record for this book
is available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN 978-0-7440-2161-5
DK books are available at special discounts when purchased
in bulk for sales promotions, premiums, fund-raising, or educational
use. For details, contact: DK Publishing Special Markets,
1450 Broadway, Suite 801, New York, NY 10018
[email protected]
Printed and bound in China
For the curious
www.dk.com
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4 PATHFINDERS 70 5 THE SOLAR SYSTEM 172
THE CONSTELLATIONS 72 OUR VIEW OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM 174
MAPPING THE CONSTELLATIONS 74 OBSERVING THE PLANETS 176
SKY MAPS 76 MERCURY AND VENUS 178
URSA MAJOR 82 MARS 180
STARHOPPING FROM THE BIG DIPPER 84 JUPITER 182
URSA MINOR AND DRACO 86 SATURN 186
CASSIOPEIA 88 URANUS AND NEPTUNE 188
CEPHEUS AND CAMELOPARDALIS 90
DWARF PLANETS AND ASTEROIDS 190
CANES VENATICI 92
THE SUN 192
BOÖTES AND COMA BERENICES 94
THE MOON 196
VIRGO 96
COMETS AND METEORS 200
CORONA BOREALIS AND SERPENS CAPUT 98
ATMOSPHERIC PHENOMENA 202
OPHIUCHUS AND SERPENS CAUDA 100
LYRA AND HERCULES 102 OTHER LIGHTS IN THE SKY 204
CYGNUS 104
STARHOPPING FROM THE SUMMER TRIANGLE 106
6 STAR CHARTS 206
AQUILA 108
VULPECULA 110 USING THE STAR CHARTS 208
PEGASUS AND PISCES 112 MONTHLY STAR CHARTS 210
STARHOPPING FROM THE SQUARE OF
PEGASUS 114
ANDROMEDA 116 7 REFERENCE 234
ARIES AND TRIANGULUM 120
REFERENCE TABLES 236
PERSEUS 122
ALMANAC 244
AURIGA 124
GLOSSARY 252
TAURUS 126
GEMINI 128
LEO AND CANCER 130
MONOCEROS AND CANIS MINOR 132 INDEX 254
ORION 134 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 263
STARHOPPING FROM ORION 136
CRUX 138
STARHOPPING FROM CRUX 140
CENTAURUS 142
CARINA 144
VELA 148
DORADO 150
TUCANA 152
PAVO 154
LIBRA AND HYDRA 156
PUPPIS 158
CANIS MAJOR 160
CETUS AND NORMA 162
AQUARIUS 164
CAPRICORNUS AND SCUTUM 166
SAGITTARIUS 168
SCORPIUS 170
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INTRODUCTION Humans have gazed up at the sparkling stars since
time immemorial, trying to understand this immense,
untouchable extension of our natural surroundings.
In ancient times, the unknowable nature of space
was cause for both wonder and fear. Eclipses were
viewed with terror: why was the Sun slowly
disappearing, the sky darkening, and the air turning
colder? Even now, ancient superstitions remain in
many cultures around the world regarding eclipses
and comets. It seems that no matter how much
science and technology demystifies space, the
human consciousness continues to be fascinated by
it. Our interests fall across many disciplines: as well
as exploring the chemistry and physics of the stars
and galaxies, we are looking for answers to more
philosophical questions about the beginning of the
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Universe and the possibility of life beyond our you’ll be looking at, such as planets, stars, and
planet. And always we are aware of the sheer nebulae, and shows how to navigate around the
beauty of the Universe’s celestial objects—many night sky, treating it as a sphere. This is followed
of the images taken by telescopes such as Hubble by practical considerations when buying and using
are breathtakingly artistic. telescopes, together with information on sketching
Whatever your reason for wanting to stargaze, and astrophotography to help you record your
your starting point is to find out what there is to observations. The book then focuses on what you
see, when to look, and how to find it. Of course will be seeing, providing maps of the constellations,
space does not always play a set-timetable game; starhopping charts, and detailed information on the
a comet, for example, can appear unexpectedly in planets and stars of our own galaxy. Once you get
the sky, but there are a multitude of astronomers started, you’ll be surprised at how much you can
with telescopes trained on the skies every night find and understand in the night sky. Within just a
who will quickly alert the world about the event short time you will be able to find planets, identify
via the Internet. This book will help you become a stars, track movements, find constellations, and
valuable part of that astronomical community. The even begin starhopping from one constellation to
first part of the book explains the kinds of objects another. Good luck on your stargazing quest.
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UNDERSTANDING
THE UNIVERSE
The Universe encompasses
everything that exists, from the
tiniest of atoms to the largest of
galaxies. In watching the night
skies, astronomers can trace the
signs of the Universe’s beginning
and learn about its evolution
through studies of the stars,
planets, nebulae, and galaxies.
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10 UNDERSTANDING THE UNIVERSE
THE UNIVERSE
The Universe is the name astronomers give to the
vast space which contains everything we know,
from great clusters of galaxies to the tiniest of
particles. Professional astronomers have gathered
clues about its evolution by capturing the light
from galaxies many billions of light-years away.
EXPLORING THE UNIVERSE FROM EARTH
Telescopes such as the ground-based Gemini
The Big Bang
South telescope in Chile have enabled
The Universe is thought to have been born 13.8 billion years ago in a astronomers to peer into the very depths
searing hot maelstrom known as the Big Bang. One strong piece of of the Universe to reveal its origins.
evidence for this energetic beginning comes in the form of a ubiquitous
source of microwave radiation appearing across the whole sky, known as
the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). As the Universe has stretched
and expanded since the Big Bang, it has also stretched the wavelength
of the radiation emitted when it was very young. So what was once
higher-energy, shorter-wavelength radiation now appears as lower-energy,
longer-wavelength microwaves. Tiny fluctuations in the density of matter
early on in the Universe acted like seeds around which matter began to
clump, setting the scene for the formation of vast clusters of galaxies.
The fingerprints of these “seeds” can be seen stamped as minute
variations in the Cosmic Microwave Background.
MICROWAVE CLUES
The Cosmic Microwave Background
(CMB) radiation appears in all
directions across the sky. The
WMAP image maps it in incredible
detail, showing the minute
variations in its signal. The CMB
was first discovered by Arno Penzias
and Robert Wilson in the 1960s.
The first stars
The first stars are thought to have appeared around 180 million years after
the Big Bang. They would have been truly gargantuan objects—possibly
100 to 1,000 times the size of our Sun, and made almost completely of
hydrogen and helium. The stars we see today in our own galaxy and in
nearby galaxies are totally different from this first generation of stars.
This is because over billions of years, generations of stars created and
dispersed new chemical elements as they lived and died, enriching the
Universe with heavier elements. Carbon, oxygen, iron, and silicon were
formed from nuclear fusion in the hot cores of the stars, and the very
heaviest elements were forged by supernova
explosions. As each star dies, it scatters new SUPERNOVA REMNANT
enriched star-forming material across space. The Big Bang produced hydrogen, helium,
and traces of lithium, but all the heavier
Without these successive generations of
elements of the Universe were formed
stars, we simply would not be here today, as within gigantic stars—the heaviest came
the ingredients to make us would not exist. from their supernova explosions.
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