****** - Verified Buyer
4.5
After so many reviews by Vine free product reviewers, how about a review by someone who actually bought the book? Well, I bought the book, so here is my review.This book is a great complement to Treasures of the Southern Skies (which I also bought). That book has photos which are, shall I say, more exotic, as many were taken by the Hubble Space Telescope and by professional astronomy telescopes (e.g., 2.2 meter aperture, etc,), while the photos in this book were all taken by an amateur astrophotographer with more modest equipment.Seventy one (71) objects are featured in the book. Each object consists of a two page spread, with a full page, approximately 12 x 8 color photo completely filling the left page, with the right page dedicated to explanatory text. Often there will be a smaller photo on the right page as well.Discretely at the bottom left of the right page, will be technical information of interest, such as object catalog numbers (e.g., NGC 5189), scale, size, orientation, right ascension and declination.The photos are organized in order of right ascension, or for those less technically inclined, by season, meaning the season at which they are highest in the southern sky.Photo quality and printing are outstanding. Object selection is great, although since there are so many gorgeous deep sky objects in the southern celestial hemisphere, one could always gripe that one or two of your favorites has been left out. Then again, perhaps you'd be surprised to find a few beauties that you have never seen before.For those new to astronomy, there are some two page introductions at the back of the book that cover stellar evolution, globular clusters, galaxies, etc. There are also several pages of Identification Charts that break down some of the more complex objects into their component parts.For budding and even accomplished astrophotographers there is a table that gives details on every photo such as telescope, camera, f stop, exposure numbers and times, filters, and processing programs used (CCD Stacker, Maxim DL, Photoshop, PixInsight, etc.).In summary, a coffee table book of outstanding deep sky photos, but so much more.
