The Ultimate Observing List for Amateurs

Book Review

 

By Bill Pellerin

Houston Astronomical Society

GuideStar Editor

What kind of observer are you?

The Ultimate Observing List for Amateurs

Book Review

 

By Bill Pellerin

Houston Astronomical Society

GuideStar Editor

What kind of observer are you?

Many of us are the kind of observers who challenges ourselves to make difficult observations – the ones that we were told were not possible. We wait for new moon, exquisitely clear skies, and we travel long distances to get away from city lights and often use with large telescopes and we push ourselves to see objects that are at the limit of visibility. We wait for a planet to be in exactly the right place on the sky to make our observations possible. The moon phase must be the one that properly illuminates the surface feature we want to see, Saturn must show us its ring system in the best orientation, the moons of Jupiter must be in the right place.

Others of us, while equally serious about our observing program, are not primarily working on observing at the limit of visibility or resolvability. Variable star observers work on making brightness estimates of the stars on their observing lists. Supernova hunters are specifically looking for bright (relative term) objects in distant galaxies. Those who measure the position of objects in the sky (astrometry), are doing great work but are not necessarily observing at the limit.

Perhaps you’re a combination of both observers – a person who goes after the difficult objects when the conditions are right, but who also enjoys other kinds of observing at other times. If you are an observer who relishes observing at the limit you’ll want to get your hands on the book Cosmic Challenge – The Ultimate Observing List for Amateurs (Cambridge Press, 2011) by Philip S. Harrington.

Whether you’ve met Phil in person or not you probably know him. He writes the “Binocular Universe” column (Cloudynights.com), is a contributing editor for Astronomy magazine, and has authored several books, including Touring the Universe Through Binoculars, and Star Ware, a regularly updated review of astronomical equipment.

What’s in the Cosmic Challenge book? The book contains 188 challenges (plus 100 double star challenges) and they are organized by observing instrument. (The back cover of the book says that there are 187 challenges, but there really are 188.) They are organized into groups for naked-eye observers, binocular observers, small scopes (and large binocular) observers (3” to 5”), medium sized telescopes (6” to 9.5”), large telescopes (10” to 14”), monster telescopes (15” and larger). While some of us might disagree with one or more of these classifications it represents an organization of the material that we can all understand and use. I probably wouldn’t call a 15” telescope a ‘monster’, but so be it. There are usually two 36” telescopes at the Texas Star Party – those are monsters, and there are even larger telescopes in private hands these days.

So you’ll know what you are getting into, here is the number of challenges by observing instrument:

• Naked eye – 21

• Binocular – 25

• Small telescope – 24

• Medium telescope – 41

• Large telescope –25

• Monster telescope – 32

Within each chapter the observing challenges are organized by observing season (winter, spring, summer, fall). Look for the season recommendation near at the top of the page near the binding. If you start your observing session early and you stay up late enough you’ll be able to observe objects from other seasons.

The book refers you to over 604 objects, so clearly there is more than one object identified in many of the challenges. Challenge 50 (small telescope) is to observe 12 galaxies in Markarian’s Chain. Challenge 164 (monster telescope), the Abell Galaxy Cluster includes 89 galaxies.

There are finder charts for each of the challenges but they have different fields-of-view for different objects. Challenge 14, a naked eye challenge, asks you to find Barnard’s Loop and the chart associated with this challenge shows the entire Orion constellation, so the chart in the book is probably all you need. Challenge 181, a globular cluster called Palomar 1 has a chart of smaller than one degree. Clearly, for some of these challenges you’ll need another atlas to find the area of interest. The book recognizes this and recommends several atlases to you in the Appendix.

Many of the objects in this book are not well known, and some of the well known objects are also well known to be difficult to observe. For example, the book suggests that you can see the Horsehead Nebula in Orion in a 3” to 5” telescope, and M81 (UMa) with the naked eye. There are some challenges that you may find, well, less challenging such as the observation of the Straight Wall (Rupes Recta) and nearby features on the moon, an observation of an old and a young moon. Generally, though, working through this book will be tough.

The challenges are accompanied by a rating (one to four stars, four stars = very difficult), a table with information on the object, a finder chart, a description of how to find the object, and a picture showing how the object will look. Most of these pictures are sketches by Phil Harrington. Photos are credited on page xi. For the Horsehead Nebula, the picture shows a field with 10 stars, but the Horsehead is so dim in the image I had to look very carefully at the image before I could actually see the location of the Horsehead. The idea is, I suppose, to demonstrate to you that the object is barely visible. In many cases you likely will not be able to see the drawing sufficiently well under dark skies with your red flashlight. The contrast of the image is too low.

There’s an argument to be made for the different orientations of the charts and of the images. The orientation of the sky through a telescope and the orientation of the sky on a star map are usually different. Be aware of this and when you’re comparing the chart to the image take this into account.

This book isn’t for the novice observer, it’s for the observer who has spent quite a bit of time under the sky and who is looking for new worlds to conquer. This book is for the observer who has honed his or her skills by making other challenging observations and who is willing to stare through the eyepiece long enough for the universe to reveal itself to him or her. If you expect that you’ll be able to move your telescope from object to object quickly, you won’t. Your ‘Oh, Wow!’ experience will come from having barely but definitely made the observation, something that most observers haven’t done because they haven’t made the effort.

If you’re ready for the challenge, Phil Harrington has thrown down the gauntlet.

Ed: Thanks to Phil Harrington for answering my questions and for providing a few corrections to this article.