Star Ware: The Amateur Astronomer’s Guide to Choosing, Buying, and Using Telescopes and Accesso

Philip S. Harrington0471750638, 978-0-471-75063-5

Amateur astronomers of all levels will appreciate this guide to choosing and caring for astronomy equipment, which also serves as a reference to terms and concepts (e.g., how the Rayleigh criterion relates to optical quality and the differences between various telescope and eyepiece designs). Practical matters, such as how to keep warm, how to keep dew off a corrector plate, how to keep mosquitos at bay, and how to collimate a Newtonian or Schmidt- Cassegrain (don’t worry, all of these things are well explained) are also covered. Though (alas) the section which showed how to star hop to selected deep-sky objects is gone, the much loved “Homemade Astronomer” chapter has been revised, with new projects including a parallelogram binocular mount made out of crutches and an adjustable ladder-style observing chair. Appendices include telescope and eyepiece specs by price range and astronomical yellow pages”