Chapter Index Chapter Listing 1) Amateur Astronomy 2) Binoculars 3) Telescopes 4) Eyepieces and Filters 5) Accessories 6) Using a Scope 7)Naked Eye Astronomy 8) Observing Site 9) Sun, Moon and Comets 10) The Planets 11) Finding Your Way 12) Deep Sky 13-14) Astrophotography 15) CCD Imaging Website Index Home Introduction to the website Contents of the book What is new at the website? Astronomy Links B.A.G Hot Picks For Further Reading Epilogue Appendix About the authors Contact Us or sign the Guestbook LINKS TO LEARN MORE
			These are our top picks for recommended websites for each of the topics covered by The Backyard Astronomer's Guide. Explore these links to build your own astronomy "favorites" or "bookmarks" list. We also list the same links to recommended websites under each Chapter, but this page compiles the complete Links collection in one place.
	Special Notes About the Links: - For manufacturers, we have listed only phone numbers, the business location by U.S. state, Canadian province or other country (i.e. UK and Australia), and website addresses. For international companies, we provide U.S. websites. - We have not provided postal addresses of companies, under the assumption that most readers will want to get information first from a website, using "snail-mail" only as a last resort. FAX numbers, postal addresses, and street locations of manufacturing plants and stores can always be obtained from the company's web page or via an e-mail inquiry. - Within each product category, companies are listed in alphabetical order. - We have listed only companies that advertise into the North American market and that maintain a North American addresses, not overseas companies that sell primarily to European, the Orient, or other markets. - The only dealers and stores listed are those who may have exclusive North American license to certain brands of telescopes. Major manufacturers have links on their websites to their network of dealers. - In all cases, these listings are provided for the convenience of readers of The Backyard Astronomer's Guide and do not necessarily imply an endorsement by the authors of the companies or their products.

Chapter One: Amateur Astronomy Comes of Age
and
Epilogue: The Universe Awaits

Part One

Chapter Two: Binoculars for the Beginner and Serious Observer
Chapter Three: Telescopes for Recreational Astronomy
Chapter Four: Essential Accessories--Eyepieces and Filters
Chapter Five: The Backyard Guide "Accessory Catalog"
Chapter Six: Using Your New Telescope

Part Two

Chapter Seven: The Naked-Eye Sky
Chapter Eight: Observing Conditions---Your Site and Light Pollution
Chapter Nine: Observing the Moon, Sun and Comets
Chapter Ten: Observing the Planets
Chapter Eleven: Finding Your Way Around the Sky
Chapter Twelve: Exploring the Deep Sky

Part Three

Chapter Thirteen: Shooting the Sky I---The Stand-Alone Camera
and
Chapter Fourteen: Shooting the Sky II---Using a Telescope
Chapter Fifteen: Shooting the Sky III---The Digital Frontier

CHAPTER ONE and EPILOGUE

These are general sites for learning more about the hobby, for connecting to the community of amateurs, and for linking to organizations and publications of general interest to all amateur astronomers.

Go Directly to...

- General Interest Websites
- Master lists of links to astronomy web sites
- Major Astronomical Organizations (North America)
- Major Amateur Observing Associations (North America)
- Internet Mailing Lists
- Internet Newsgroup/Forums
- Major Magazines
- Astronomy Clubs
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General Interest Astronomy Websites

Hubble Space Telescope
hubble.stsci.edu/news_.and._views/
This page contains links to the latest publicly released images from Hubble.

Phil Plait's Bad Astronomy
www.badastronomy.com
Phil debunks urban myths like "the Moon landing hoax" and many more misconceptions, movie astro-bloopers, and badly reported astronomy news stories. A great place to arm yourself for the inevitable questions from friends that start, "I heard that …"

Sten Odenwald's Astronomy Café
www.astronomycafe.net
Enter the site and look for the Ask the Astronomer or Ask the Space Scientists sections. Sten provides concise, cogent answers to all the frequently and not so frequently asked questions about space and astronomy.

Astronomy Picture of the Day
antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
The home page of choice for many amateur astronomers.

SETI@Home
setiathome.berkeley.edu/
The screen saver of choice for many amateur astronomers.

Astronomy Image Library
www.astronomy.ca/images/
Dan Charrois' searchable database of all astronomical images on the web.

Finally...
Paul Mortfield's BackyardAstronomy.com
www.backyardastronomer.com
Hey, we wanted this URL! But we're glad to see our friend Paul, an ex-patriot Canadian, operate this fine personal website. Some great astrophotos here, so pay Paul a visit

Master lists of links to astronomy web sites

StarWorlds
cdsweb.u-strasbg.fr/~heck/spages.htm
Andre Heck's searchable database of more than 11,000 astronomy websites.

Astronomy Links.com
www.astronomylinks.com
A commercial site of astronomy links well-organized by category.

AstroWeb
http://www.cv.nrao.edu/fits/www/astronomy.html
A huge! list of every astro-site in existence, and no doubt many that are not.

Mike Boschat's master List
www.atm.dal.ca/~boschat
An alphabetical list of prime websites; maintained by Canadian amateur Mike Boschat.

Major Astronomical Organizations (North America)

Astronomical League
www.astroleague.org
Home page for the major umbrella organization in the United States for hundreds of local astronomy clubs.

Astronomical Society of the Pacific
www.astrosociety.org
Major source of books, slides and posters, as well as educational resources for teachers.

Planetary Society
http://planetary.org
Advocacy organization for planetary exploration. Publishes bi-monthly Planetary Report magazine.

Royal Astronomical Society of Canada
www.rasc.ca
Canada's national organization of amateur astronomers, with local centres in most cities across Canada. Publisher of annual Observer's Handbook, Calendar, bi-monthly Journal, and Beginner's Observing Guide.

Major Amateur Observing Associations (North America)

American Association of Variable Star Observers
www.aavso.org
The prime source for variable star information and coordinating amateur observations.

Association of Lunar and Planetary Observers
www.lpl.arizona.edu/alpo/
Principle organization in North America for coordinating amateur observations of solar system targets

International Occultation Timing Organization
www.lunar-occultations.com/iota/iotandx.htm
Coordinates amateur observations of stellar and asteroid occultations.

Internet Mailing Lists

Many smaller manufacturers provide links at their sites to privately-hosted user-group lists, with the manufacturers themselves contributing useful tips and answers. Often there is a FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) file that can be downloaded from a library site. Please check that first before asking what may be a common question.

For an extensive listing of user groups, go to...

Yahoo Groups for Astronomy
http://dir.groups.yahoo.com/dir/Science/Astronomy
Check the Yahoo astronomy directory. There's bound to be a mailing list for a user group for the model of telescope, camera, or software you are interested in. There were more than 700 astronomy-related groups in 2002! Some groups allow non-members to search archives; other groups require you to join.

Internet Newsgroup/Forums

Sci.astro.amateur
The main forum for amateur astronomy, but beware... lots of flame, fringe, and misinformation here. We find little of value in such groups, but some people thrive on them.

Astronomy Clubs

For the contact information for an astronomy club nearest you, link on over to one of these master lists of club websites and addresses.

SkyNews (Canadian clubs)
skynews.ca/pages/clubs.html

Sky and Telescope magazine (all of North America)
skyandtelescope.com/resources/organizations/

Major Magazines

To keep up with what's going on in the sky, every amateur astronomer should subscribe to at least one major astronomy magazine.

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CHAPTER TWO: Binoculars for Astronomy

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Manufacturers of Binoculars and Binocular Mounts

We provide links to all the binocular manufacturers mentioned in Chapter 2, and many more besides. For major companies we list their U.S. websites. We also list small companies who make unique binocular accessories such as cantilever stands and mounts.

Better View Desired
betterviewdesired.com/index.html
Reviews of binoculars and spotting scopes for the birding market.

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CHAPTER THREE: Telescopes for Astronomy

Go directly to...

- Web Review Websites
- Telescope Manufacturers
- Telescope Optics Makers (Premium mirrors)
- Telescope Mount Makers (Premium German equatorial)
- Second-Hand Telescopes and Equipment
- Telescope User-Group Sites
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Web Review Websites

Amateur reviews of scopes tend to quite variable in their depth and quality, written as they are by new owners of telescopes with often more enthusiasm than background knowledge for making an objective judgement. However, we've found these sites do provide some useful reviews.

CloudyNights.com
www.CloudyNights.com
Reviews are by a variety of contributors. Anyone can upload their opinion. Reviews range from the laughably amateurish to the thoroughly skilled. You'll soon learn to tell the difference.

ScopeReviews.com
www.ScopeReviews.com
Reviews are by Ed Ting, a very knowledgeable telescope owner and user.

Weatherman.com
www.weatherman.com
Reviews by internet regular, professional meteorologist and experienced telescope user Todd Gross.

Phil Harrington's Star Ware
ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/pharrington/
Author and telescope expert Phil Harrington posts telescope reviews and comments from readers that could not be included in the latest edition of his excellent Star Ware book.

Excelsis Astronomy Ratings
http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/catalog.php?categoryid=3
Contributors rank their favorite telescopes. Take the ratings with several grains of salt (owners will often defend that their scopes are the greatest) but the tabulations provide some idea of relative customer satisfaction with the many telescope models on the market.

Telescope Manufacturers

We provide links to all the telescope manufacturers mentioned in Chapter 3, and many more besides. First, here are some sites of interest to telescope makers.

-- Bob Lombardi's home website
www.tfn.net/~blombard/
Master list of suppliers of amateur telescope making components.

-- Building a Dobsonian Telescope
members.aol.com/sfsidewalk/cdobplans.htm
On-line plans from the San Francisco Sidewalk Astronomers.

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Telescope Optics Makers (Premium mirrors)

These companies specialize in first class mirrors for those interested in making a homebuilt Dobsonian or upgrading a low-grade commercial Newtonian.

Second-Hand Telescopes and Equipment

These sites contain extensive and well-organized classified ads from private individuals buying and selling astronomy equipment. These sites also contain links to numerous web-based "cottage-industry" suppliers who do not advertise in magazines but who offer unique accessories. In addition, some dealers such as Astronomics and Anacortes also maintain classified sections.

Astronomy Mall
www.Astronomy-Mall.com
Classified ads pages plus many links to small suppliers.

Astro-Mart
www.astromart.com
Classified ads pages plus many links to small suppliers.

Canada-Wide Astronomy Buy & Sell
www.astrobuysell.com
Classified pages for Canadian amateur astronomers

Telescope Bluebook
home.att.net/~telescopebluebook
Information on telescopes of the past, and members can receive info on actual selling prices of various models.


Telescope User-Group Sites

Meade ETX telescopes
www.weasner.com/etx
Mike Weasner's Mighty ETX site: lots of tips here if you can weed out the useful nuggets from the unedited reams of e-messages.

Meade Advanced Products User Group (LX200, etc)
http://www.mapug.com
A compilation of tips and techniques of interest to owners of the original Meade LX200, new LX200 GPS, LX90, ETX-series and Magellan add-on box. Well-organized by topic but extracting the needed information requires reading through a mass of unedited e-mail queries and replies. But this is the best source of help for these popular but, to many people, often puzzling telescopes.

Celestron NexStar telescopes
http//www.NexStarSite.com
Mike Swanson's well-organized support site for users of all NexStar scopes. Contains useful downloadable software.

PLUS... Many smaller manufacturers provide links at their sites to privately-hosted user-group lists, with the manufacturers themselves contributing useful tips and answers. Often there is a FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) file that can be downloaded from a library site. Please check that first before asking what may be a common question.

For an extensive listing of user groups, go to...

Yahoo Groups for Astronomy
http://dir.groups.yahoo.com/dir/Science/Astronomy

Check the Yahoo astronomy directory. There’s bound to be a mailing list for a user group for the model of telescope, camera, or software you are interested in. There were more than 700 astronomy-related groups in 2002! Some groups allow non-members to search archives; other groups require you to join.

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CHAPTER FOUR: Eyepieces and Filters

Go directly to...

- Eyepiece Manufacturers
- Filter Makers (Nebula, Solar—white light and H-alpha)
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Eyepiece Manufacturers

All dealers offer an array of eyepieces. These companies all offer unique lines of eyepieces under their own trade names.

Filter Makers (Nebula, Solar---white light and H-alpha)

Most dealers have colored filters for planetary viewing. These companies offer more specialized nebula filters for deep-sky viewing, and white-light and H-alpha filters for solar astronomy. Lumicon also offered unique filters for astrophotography such as Minus Violet and red H-Alpha-Pass.

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CHAPTER FIVE: Backyard Guide Accessory Catalog

Go directly to...

- Accessory Manufacturers
- Used and Surplus Telescope Gear
- Domes and Portable Shelters
- Travel: Tours and Astronomy Resorts
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