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The Great Atlas of the Stars
 
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The Great Atlas of the Stars [Spiral-bound]

Serge Brunier (Author), Akira Fujii (Photographer)
4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)

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Product Description

From Amazon

Serge Brunier's The Great Atlas of the Stars is a book of wonder. It is a beautiful, informative introduction to viewing the skies with the aid of celestial cartography. In answering basic questions, like the size and brightness of the individual components that make up the constellation of Hercules, for example, it can only leave the user of this volume hungrily wanting more. The book's large size and spiral binding make it handy for evening adventures close to home.

Thirty of the most popular constellations, mainly but not exclusively ones best seen in the Northern Hemisphere, are described in an information-sheet format. Along with each description, some of the grander questions are touched upon: the big bang theory, the birth of stars and how old they are. Each stellar description is augmented by illustrations and text (the southern "foot" of Hercules is the red supergiant star Rasalgethi, some 400 light years away; if it were to replace our sun, it would engulf all planets up to Mars). Akira Fujii's beautiful, full-page photographs show a mind-boggling array of points of light whose colour and arrangement are almost unimaginable. Several of the illustrated constellations have clear plastic overlays, highlighting the main points of interest. The Great Atlas of the Stars is a book of wonder because after utilizing it and understanding some of the basic principles of stargazing, one is left to wonder about all those other stars, the ones farther away, not yet described. --Tim T. Tokaryk

From Publishers Weekly

Binocular-toting amateur stargazers have a new weapon in constellation recognition with The Great Atlas of the Stars by Serge Brunier (Majestic Universe: Views from Here to Infinity). Brunier features 30 of the 88 constellations visible from earth (focusing on those visible in the northern hemisphere) and offers details about the major stars in each: the luminosity of Cancer's "beehive cluster," for example, or the diameter of Perseus's supergiant star Mirfak. Many of Akira Fujii's gorgeous photographs of the night sky are overlaid with a clear Mylar sheet marked with the names of the constellation's stars and the celestial dot-to-dot of their shapes.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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Customer Reviews

10 Reviews
5 star:
 (8)
4 star:
 (1)
3 star:
 (1)
2 star:    (0)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.7 out of 5 stars (10 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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4.0 out of 5 stars "Great Atlas" falls short of its name, Feb 6 2004
By 
Brian Tung (Marina del Rey, CA USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Great Atlas of the Stars (Spiral-bound)
One knock on modern star atlases is that they tend to be, well, a little dry. Old atlases have colorful constellation figures drawn in ornate detail, detail that gets in the way of seeing the actual stars. Aiming for the practical, atlases for professional use focused more and more on the stars--the ultimate case being an atlas by the German astronomer Friedrich Argelander. Argelander's work was a map of 324,000 stars, unrelieved with figures, constellation lines, names, numbers, or indeed anything at all except coordinate lines. It's hardly a gripping book.

Brunier and Fujii's book is an attempt to put more of the beauty of the night sky back into a map of the stars. This book really isn't a comprehensive atlas; think of it more as a Fodor's guide to the stars. Not all of the sky is covered--just the highlights.

Even those readers only faintly acquainted with the heavens will recognize some friends here: the Big Dipper, Orion. But this book doesn't merely show you the constellations. Akira Fujii's breathtaking wide-field astrophotos reveal dozens of celestial wonders in the neighborhood of each constellation. The brightest are pulled out for special mention in the accompanying text, written by Brunier. Acetate overlays are cleverly inserted between the photos, marked with white circles to indicate where the objects are.

Here's where the book gets a bit dicier. Quite a few of the circles aren't where they ought to be. The circles for M81 and M82, a dazzling pair of galaxies close to the Big Dipper, is a couple of degrees off from where it ought to be. (The circle itself is about a degree across.) Even worse is the circle for M3, a globular cluster containing hundreds of thousands of stars; not only is the circle about 5 degrees off, but M3 isn't even in the wide-field astrophoto at all.

Now, an ordinary copy editor isn't going to be able to catch this, and it won't matter much to the ordinary reader. But it shows a lack of attention to detail that just shouldn't be an issue for a book with such outstanding production values. (And they are outstanding.) This book deserves a second edition; let's hope that these mostly minor issues get resolved by then.

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5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful book, useful, attractive, and even educational, Nov 16 2003
By 
This review is from: The Great Atlas of the Stars (Spiral-bound)
I have a number of astronomy books and this one stands out as exceptional. Its a well annotated picture book that appeals to both adults and youngsters. It serves both a great eye-candy, but it's also a great reference. The striking large photos are very attractive (of course), but the presence of plasic overlays that allows you to see annotations is a great idea; you can see the raw scene but also see the actual vista. The descriptive text is also good and quite informative. This is the only astronomy book I leave out since it appeals to anybody.
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3.0 out of 5 stars Nice idea but badly executed, Dec 16 2002
By 
STEVEN OROURKE (Southern California) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: The Great Atlas of the Stars (Spiral-bound)
I agree that the photos are wonderful. However, the editors/writers aren't very skilled in astronomy, or even checking accuracy. The concept of the book is to link the star photos to other photos of higher resolution and to append to that a useful paragraph of info. Unfortunately, the circled areas on the main photo (using the plastic overlay) often do not match the same field as the referenced close-up photo. Moreover, the text is often too little, unrelated, or just plain weak. It would have been very easy to get this right but that didn't happen in this edition; very frustrating. So, if you like awesome photos then the book is nice; as an astronomical tool it is fairly useless. Let's hope the next edition does better.
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