Observing the Solar System: The Modern Astronomer's Guide [Hardcover]

"Observing the Solar System" is a fairly complete (a relative term when discussing the Solar System) guide for an amateur astronomer to start viewing the night sky. It has a strong focus on planets and comets, and not as much attention to galaxies and some of the Messier objects. There are twelve chapters:

1. Earth and Sky - half is about basic geology of the Earth and the other half discusses meteors.

2. Moon and planet observer's hardware - this whole chapter is about what type of telescope setup you need for observing the moon and planets.

3. The Solar System framed - discusses CCD cameras for amateur astrophotography

4. Stacking up the Solar System - this whole chapter is about "focus stacking" with astrophotography to get better images.

5. Our Moon - This is one of the better chapters of the book and is very comprehensive for an amateur lunar observer. It discusses lunar characteristics and what you can expect when viewing the moon. I found some very useful info in it that I didn't already know.

6. Mercury and Venus - You're not going to see much in a telescope when observing these two planets due to their size and apparent magnitude, but it discusses their orbits and phases and has some interesting info on transits.

7. Mars - a decent chapter on observing through a telescope, and with the naked eye, as well as the orbit of Mars and its moons.

8. Jupiter - One of the better chapters of the book and that I've found in an amateur astronomer's guide, with information on observing the planet and its moons.

9. Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune - Half about Saturn and its moons, and half about Uranus and Neptune.

10. Small Worlds - Asteroids, Pluto, binocular observing, asteroid photography, and photometry (which I feel is a bit dry and could have been left out).

11. Comets - 1/3 discusses comet behavior, and the rest is about comet photography and photometry.

12. Our daytime star - solar characteristics, tips for safe solar viewing without setting your eyeballs on fire, and sunspots.

Planetary observation can be highly addicted but equally highly frustrating. A productive visual or imaging session requires a seemingly impossible confluence of vital factors such as atmospheric stability, accurate optical collimation, proper polar alignment, thermal equilibrium of optics, etc. For folks who live in parts of the country where the jet stream is prevalent, observation can be quite frustrating. This book, written by an experienced and knowledgeable astronomer, does a good job in balancing observational, imaging, and foundational information for intermediate amateurs interesting in taking a more serious step in this area. Three things that would have been nice to mention more: 1. Thermal equilibrium of a telescope. It takes a bit of effort to get a Schmidt-Cass or Maksutov to get into thermal equilibrium. Taking it out of storage with a huge thermal differential with the ambient will guarantee a pretty much useless night of productive observation. Bringing huge optical surfaces from a cold indoors into a warm night will likewise create a huge amount of dew on the optical surfaces. 2. There are, for those starting in the hobby, very nice iPhone observational apps that will help one locate the planets. Other programs will actually show correct real-time features that will allow one to correlate to what is being observed. 3. The choice of a proper equatorial mount and tripod are as vital as selecting the optics. Too often, people get stymied by cheap shaky import mounts and tripods with low stability and poor tracking. Some of these can be surprisingly expensive but useless for serious work.

All in all, a good book and recommended read.

Since I gave my husband a rather pricey telescope for Christmas, I jumped at the opportunity to order this book via Amazon Vine. Wow, am I so glad I did! The information here is presented in an academic yet engaging format that hooked him from the first page. In addition to covering all of the various phenomena in the solar system (asteroids, comets, etc.), he really enjoyed how each chapter of the book discusses a separate planet in-depth and provides guidance about how and when to look at that planet. We were also pleased to find that it gave him information on using his new telescope. The pictures are gorgeous, too.