The Night Sky Observers Guide...
The Night Sky Observers Guide series is a great book. It's quite intense and covers a ton of deep sky objects with finder charts for everything, sketches on lots of objects, and observation notes as to what can be see through different sized apertures.
At the beginning of each constellation it gives a large table listing of binocular objects and stars of interest. It's a hard cover book with a whopping 504 pages!
There are a lot of dso's in this book more specific to larger scopes, but there's still plenty of stuff in it for 8-10" scopes, not a lot for 4-6" scopes, and pretty much favors 12-14" and in particular 16" scopes.
I love this book and wouldn't be without it.. a book I will grow into as I get more experience.
Our own Paddy has done a wonderful review of it here in this forum.
http://www.iceinspace.com.au/46-627-0-0-1-0.html
Atlas of the Southern Night Sky...
Another thick and fantastic book. Beautiful colour photographs, descriptions of the objects, followed by a map on the facing page.
Paddy has done a review of this book also (good work Paddy!)
http://www.iceinspace.com.au/bookreviews.html
The Southern Sky Guide (David Ellyard)...
I just could never get into this book.
For me, I find the maps difficult to read and having the constellations broken up makes it even harder. The descriptions on the facing page aren't well laid out either as the object descriptions are merged thru large paragraphs instead of being listed.
Hartungs Astronomical Objects for Southern Telescopes...
I did a thread on this a while back.
http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=63394&highlight=ha rtung's
This is an observers companion book describing the objects beautifully. There are no maps however. Anyone that owns one of these books, displays it with pride of place on their bookshelf I'm sure (as I do).
The following two books aren't specific to the Southern Sky but does include the Southern Constellations. I have added them because I think they are great books.
Collins Stars & Planets (Ian Ridpath)...
This is my favourite book and my right hand at the scope. The objects, stars and astrophysics are listed beautifully, with the map of the entire constellation on the facing page. The map is very easy to read and the book is a nice handle-able size by the scope.
However, this book won't give you really deep dso's- that's where the Night Sky Observers Guide comes into its own.
http://www.amazon.com/Collins-Stars-...2641053&sr=1-2
Sky & Telescope's Pocket Sky Atlas...
Spiral bound and easy to handle, it's filled with a ton of goodies.
I've just gotten this book so I haven't had the opportunity to really to put it to use yet, but it looks easy to read and well laid out. Many of us here on the forum have got this book. And it's so cheap at $20 from the Book Depository in the UK (free shipping!) - great value!
In summary...
I doubt that you'll find one book that will do it all. Like me, you'll probably find that you'll wind up with several books and maps. Some books cater for the brighter objects and are quite easy to read and navigate thru, others are intense, some books cater more for "observing", i.e. more a teaching guide on techniques and what to look for in objects (such as Stephen O'Meara's Deep Sky Objects- Messier Objects- fantastic book, and Hartung's), some books list the astrophhysics and objects of interest better or clearer than others, etc. I have lots of books/maps- each used for different observations.
All the best with your hunt on a suitable book, Chris.
,as the book is no longer in print
