Here's a complete listing of chapter titles and contents for the printed book.
This website provides supplemental material to complement the content of each of these chapters.
Amateur Astronomy Comes of Age
- -Naturalists of the Night
-Amateur Astronomy Today
-Getting in Deeper
-Are You Ready?
Chapter Two
Binoculars for the Beginner and the Serious Observer
-Selecting Binoculars
-Exit Pupil
-Field of View
-Eyeglasses and Binoculars
-Binocular Tests
-Recommendations
-Giant Binoculars
Telescopes for Recreational Astronomy
-
-A Brief History of Telescopes
- -Choosing a Telescope
- -The Magnification Scam
- -Photographic Fever
- -Types of Optics
- -Decoding Telescope Specs
- -Surveying the Telescope Market
- -Signs of a Good Starter Scope
- -Do You Need an Equatorial Mount?
- -Pros and Cons of Telescope Types
- -Do You Need a "Go To" Telescope?
- -Picking a Schmidt-Cassegrain
- -Recommended Telescopes
- -The Used-Scope Lot
- -Choosing a Telescope
Essential Accessories: Eyepieces and Filters
- -Focal Length; Field of View
- -Calculating Power
- -Eye Relief
- -Coatings
- -Wide-Field Eyepieces
- -Long-Eye-Relief Eyepieces
- -Nagler-Class Eyepieces
- -Barlow Lenses
- -Eyepiece and Barlow Performance
- -Coma Correctors
- -Planetary Filters
- -Lunar Filters
- -Deep-Sky or Nebula Filters
- -Calculating Power
The Backyard Guide "Accessory Catalog"
- -Upgraded Finderscope
- -Reflex Sighting Devices
- -Cleaning and Tool Kit
- -Dew-Remover Coils
- -Polar-Alignment Scopes
- -Heavy-Duty Tripods and Wedges
- -Wheeley Bars and Scope Covers
- -Collimation Tools
- -Digital Setting Circles
- -Binocular Viewers
- -Focus Motors
- -Erect-Image Finders
- -Astro-Travel and Touring
- -Reflex Sighting Devices
Using Your New Telescope
- -Decoding Directions
- -The Mount
- -The Optical Tube
- -The Tripod
- -How a Telescope Moves
- -Telescope Assembly, a 10-Step Program
- -Daytime Adjustments
- -Getting Lined Up
- -Sharpening the Finder
- -Nighttime Use
- -Doing the Equatorial Tango
- -A Change of Latitude
- -First-Light Do's and Don'ts
- -Top 10 Newbie Questions
- -The Mount
Chapter Seven
The Naked-Eye Sky
- -Phenomena of the Day Sky
- -Phenomena of the Sunset Sky
- -Phenomena of the Darkening Sky
- -Superb Conjunctions 2002-2015
- -Phenomena of the Dark Sky
- -Meteors
- -Fireballs and Meteorites
- -Auroras
- -Our Home in the Galaxy
- -Recording Your Observations
- -Phenomena of the Sunset Sky
Observing Conditions: Your Site and Light Pollution
- -The Eroding Sky
- -Your Observing Site Observing From the City
- -Evaluating the Observing Site
-Rating Your Observing Site
- -Remote Observing Site
- -Conventions at Dark-Sky Sites
- -Limiting-Magnitude Factors
- -Averted Vision
- -The Magnitude Scale
- -Your Observing Site Observing From the City
Observing the Moon, Sun and Comets
- -Lunar Observing
- -Is There Anything Left to Discover?
- -Equipment for Lunar Observing
- -Solar Observing
- -Solar Viewing by Projection
- -Solar Filters for Telescopes
- -Comets
- -Bright Comets: 1950s to 2002
- -Is There Anything Left to Discover?
Observing the Planets
- -Mercury
- -Observing Mercury by Day
- -Venus
- -Telescopic Appearance
- -Mars
- -Life on Mars and Percival Lowell
- -More on Planetary Filters
- -Jupiter
- -Jupiter's Four Major Satellites
- -Saturn
- -Saturn's Satellite Family
- -Uranus, Neptune and Pluto
- -Observing Mercury by Day
Finding Your Way Around the Sky
- -How the Sky Works
- -As the World Turns
- -Under the Celestial Sphere
- -Where's the North Star?
- -The View From Space
- -March of the Constellations
- -Path of the Planets
- -Wobbling Earth
- -Ecliptic Highs and Lows
- -Learning to Star-Hop
- -Fifth-Magnitude Star Atlases
- -Sixth-Magnitude Star Atlases
- -Seventh-Magnitude Star Atlas
- -Eighth-Magnitude Star Atlas
- -Ninth-Magnitude Star Atlas
- -Eleventh-Magnitude Star Atlas
- -As the World Turns
Exploring the Deep Sky
-
- -The Deep-Sky Zoo
- -Messier's Catalog
- -Running the Messier Marathon
- -The NGC and IC
- -Herschel's Catalog
- -Beyond the NGC
- -Deep-Sky Tour One: The Stars
- -It's All Greek to Me
- -Deep-Sky Tour Two: Star Clusters
- -Deep-Sky Tour Three: Where Stars Are Born
- -Asterisms, the Un-Clusters
- -Glowing Gas Clouds
- -Dark Nebulas: Silhouettes on the Sky
- -Deep-Sky Tour Four: Where Stars Die
- -Deep-Sky Tour Five: Beyond the Milky Way
- -The Local Group
- -Galaxy Groups
- -Virgo Galaxy Cluster
- -Distant Clusters
- -Sketching at the Eyepiece
- -Southern-Sky Splendors
- -The Deep-Sky Zoo
Chapter Thirteen
Shooting the Sky I: The Stand-Alone Camera
-Exposure Guidelines: Fixed-Camera Subjects
-Auroras and Sky Glows
-Constellations
-Maximum Exposures to Avoid Trailing
-Buying a Digital Camera
-Star Trails
-What Can Go Wrong?
-Eclipses
-Lunar Eclipses
-Buying a Film Camera
-Solar Eclipses
-Solar Eclipse Exposures
Shooting the Sky II: Using a Telescope
-Digital Adapters
-Astrophoto Accessories
-Digital Techniques
-Shooting the Planets
-Video Astronomy
-Astrovid Camera
-Shooting the Moon and Sun: Film
-The Best Films and Exposures
-Exposure Guide for Lunar Photography
-Shooting Eclipses With a Telescope
-Deep-Sky Piggyback Photography
-Film's Last Domain
-Piggyback Gear
-Barn-Door Tracker
-Field of View (for 35mm-format film cameras)
-Prime-Focus Deep-Sky Photography
-CCDs or Film?
-Selecting an Astrophoto Telescope
-Auto-Guiders: Guiding Salvation
-What Can Go Wrong: Deep-Sky Guiding
Shooting the Sky III: The Digital Frontier
-How CCDs Work
-What CCD Cameras Can Do
-What CCD Cameras Can't Do
-Choosing a Camera
-Pixel Count vs. Pixel Size
-Picking Pixels
-A Night With a CCD Camera
-Processing Images
-Is Astrophotography for You?
- Appendix
- Epilogue
- Further Reading
- Index
- The Authors