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Summary: Just what I needed to get me going
Review: After buying 4 other books on astronomy and hoping for one that would get a new astronomer such as myself past looking at the moon and planets. This book did the trick. I found over 20 messier objects the first night with just this book and a star chart to guide me. The illustrations and drawings along with his description of how to find the objects put me on the money to objects that are not visible to the naked eye. The back cover is a quick star chart too. Comes in handy when your away from your table. I gave it 4 stars because it is a hard back book. It would have been perfect if he had taken the "Nightwatch" example and made it a spiral bound to lay flat.
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Summary: The new standard in Messier Guide Books
Review: At first I was reluctant to buy this new book because I already own several Messier books. However, the author has clearly established this book as a must have for amateur astronomers that are interested in deep sky objects. The key to the success of the book is a combination of the text, photos, excellent finder charts, and the unique drawings. The author writes in a personal style and adds many new ways to observe and view deep sky objects, ie appreciate the messiers. This book in combination with the recently published "year round messier marathon" by pennington will allow relatively new amateur astonomers to locate and observe galaxies, star clusters, and nebulae.
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Summary: Making small scopes look good :)
Review: First of all I have to say that O'Meara is a brilliant writer and a superb visual observer. He manages to capture the spirit of observing and you feel like he is right next to you at the eyepiece when you read the book. But the defining thing about this book is the superbly detailed eyepiece impressions. Indeed he sees more through the eyepiece of a 4" TeleVue Genesis than most people through much larger telescopes. Its all about training ones eyes to see detail. Most of us are mere "peekers", just taking quick glimpses of objects. O'Meara encourages and inspires us to push our vision to the limit, to drink in the faint details of a galaxy's spiral arms. I for one have been inspired. Very highly recommended for visual observers.
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Summary: A reference work without an index is seriously flawed.
Review: I am astonished that a serious reference work such as this does not contain an index. If you want to read about the Ring Nebula and like me do not happen to have its Messier number memorized you have to look pege by page through the book to find it. Don't believe a reference work, no matter how good the material, can rate more than a star without an index.
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Summary: This book is an essential guide to the budding astronomer.
Review: I am new to the hobby of astronomy and have been reading every book I can get my hands on. While I have come across several books that filled me in on planatary and lunar observations, these books were lacking in their descriptions of the Messier objects. Oh, I knew I should take a look at these celestial treasures. But which ones? And what would they really look like? Thank God for O'Meara's book! It was an unfortunate discovery for me that the pictures I see of various nebulas and galaxies are not the same views I will encounter in my 8-inch Newtonian reflector. (The cameras bring out more detail or the pictures are taken on bigger scopes.) However, what O'Meara does is describe each member of Charles Messier's 18th century catalogue, enclose a black and white photo, and then a detailed sketch of what he saw through a 4-inch telescope. The book is in numerical order so finding the various objects is very easy. When I am planning a night of observing, I simply leaf through the book, find some interesting objects and then check to see if they will be out that night. I can then study his descriptions so that I will know what I am looking for. Fantastic! This is essential for any beginning astronomer and I dare say it would be an interesting read for non-observers as well.
Rating:
Summary: Pretty good book.
Review: I have both this book and "The Caldwell Objects". These are both good books to have if you are an amateur astronomer (armchair included). I found both books an interesting read and pretty enjoyable. Probably the ONLY thing I hate about both books is that Mr. O'Meara is looking at these object from atop Kilauea on the Big Island whilst I fight the skyglow of New Jersey. I had been atop Haleakala and Kilauea but sans telescope. Ugh... I am so envious... Besides that fun books to read all the same.
Rating:
Summary: Pretty good book.
Review: I have both this book and "The Caldwell Objects". These are both good books to have if you are an amateur astronomer (armchair included). I found both books an interesting read and pretty enjoyable. Probably the ONLY thing I hate about both books is that Mr. O'Meara is looking at these object from atop Kilauea on the Big Island whilst I fight the skyglow of New Jersey. I had been atop Haleakala and Kilauea but sans telescope. Ugh... I am so envious... Besides that fun books to read all the same.
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Summary: Messier for the terminally bored observer
Review: I think an opposing opinion is a healthy thing, and here you have one. Here we have a book, not for the interested amateur who wishes to famaliarize him/herself with the topic, but for the experienced observer who has become so terminally bored that a heaping helping of fantasy is required to perk up the interest somewhat. For the observer wishing to learn, the "maps" in this book are the worst available and essentially worthless for someone not already reasonably famaliar with where to find these things. For the rest of us who don't live on a volcano in the middle of the Pacific ocean, no info is provided as to the conditions or aperture required to view a given object. O'Meara goes to considerable length to provide a sales pitch for the Televue Genesis, but the piddly photos featured in the book come from God only knows where -- definitely not O'Meara's scope; O'Meara couldn't even keep the photos to some kind of consistent scale, so the learning observer might go away thinking that M3 is three times the size of M13. In fact, the photos in the book are among the worst available. O'Meara tries to sell this deficiency by saying that he wanted to show what you would see in your telescope. The only problem with this is that the photos come from no "standard" telescope -- such as a 6 or 8 inch job -- and, for the most part, are not representative of what one will see in such a scope. I kept getting the feeling that O'Meara's whole purpose in writing this book was to tell us what a wonderful observer he is. The descriptions are indeed fanciful, wildly so in some cases. In comparing some of the hand drawings with the piddly photos, I was left wondering if maybe O'Meara's eyesight was influenced more by what he wanted to say he saw rather than the light emmanating from the object. And if O'Meara truly wanted the reader to gain some appreciation for fine detail present in an object, one has to ask if O'Meara ever heard the saying: A picture is worth a thousand words? For the hopelessly bored observer, or possibly for the snob, this book might be of some benefit. For the newbie needing a good, factual guide to finding, observing, and learning about the Messier objects, this book offers nearly worthless maps, the worst photography around, and instructions (maybe) on finding the object that will leave the less experienced amateur in the dark.
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Summary: A companion for all levels of interest.
Review: I'd grown familiar with Mr O'Meara's style of writing from his articles in Sky and Telescope magazine. He has a convincing way with words that help you to visualize what he sees. But the well written text is only a part of this book. Stephen O'Meara is not only an excellent writer and veteran observer, but he's also an accomplished sketch artist. Each of O'Meara's Messier subjects is accompanied by a wonderfully rendered drawing of it, along with a verbal artistic impression that elevates each chapter to a near virtual experience. As a result, I actually discovered a personally rekindled interest in some of the Messier objects that I'd forsaken over the years as 'boring' or uninteresting. I can think of but one word to suit his achievement: Bravo.I highly recommend this book not only to amateur astronomers of all levels, but to professional astronomers as well, and to readers of astronomy in general.
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Summary: Terrific assistance for small telescopes
Review: Most problems amateurs have with the Messier objects is a) finding them, and b) once they "think" they have found it, knowing what it "should" look like, and c) once they do actually have it, knowing and understanding what they are looking at. This book really helps with (b) and (c). A Telrad bullseye would have helped with (a), but one can't have everything. This is a great, easy-to-read and use companion for anyone who likes looking for the deep-sky objects.
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