1,001 Celestial Wonders to See Before You Die: The Best Sky Objects for Star Gazers

by Michael E. Bakich

1,001 Celestial Wonders is a guide to the night sky's brightest and most fascinating objects. Each target is accessible to amateur astronomers using medium-sized telescopes from a dark site. In fact, many are so bright they remain visible under moderate light pollution, as from the outskirts of a city or the suburbs of a town. The book provides a chronological target list, making it easy to use. No matter what night you choose, this book will show you many of the most memorable objects to observe, whether you are using a small telescope or even binoculars, or an instrument of larger aperture. This is far more than just a list of interesting objects. It is structured so that objects of various observing difficulty are included, which will help readers become better observers, both encouraging beginners and challenging long-time amateur astronomers. This book is designed to be easy-to-use at the telescope, and observers will appreciate each object's standardized layout and the book's chronological organization. Finally, many amateur astronomers function best when presented with a list! Even the Meade Autostar® controller features a 'best tonight' list (although the list is far less comprehensive and detailed than the catalog provided in this book), a feature that has proved extremely popular. 1,001 Celestial Wonders offers a life-list of objects any observer would be proud to complete.

Genres: Astronomy, Science

492 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2010

Reviews

[Aron · Rating 2 out of 5]

The author wrote this book to answer the frequent astronomy question of “What should I look at tonight?” It’s organized by month to help readers narrow down their search. Unfortunately, within a given month, I didn’t catch any sort of additional organization. For a beginner like me, a priority ranking (or even just a top 10), or a “size of scope required” ranking would have been very appreciated - versus the current pile of 75-100 objects, their descriptions, and some photographs. I could also see a location-based structure being useful for more advanced readers who have already seen the easiest/best objects already.

This is probably a useful resource for somewhat experienced amateur astronomers with a few scopes available, but I’m not the target audience at this time. I could see coming back to this in the future and giving it a more fair shot.

[David Roberts · Rating 4 out of 5]

Comprehensive review of over 1000 celestial sights. Some description are a bit too brief. I read 3 per day for most days of the year.

[Regina Hunter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pictures are just AMAZING!!!