Your photographers handbook sounds great, I would be interested to see a copy some time. I meant to mention in my post that Ken Wallace and Glenn Dawes have both received the McNiven medal, see :
https://www.asnsw.com/mcniven Along with Peter Northfield their "Astronomy" book published each year is just superb, I really don't know how they produce it to such a high standard.
Re your copy of the USNO, I recall buying a copy of the The American Ephemeris and Nautical Almanac by United States Naval Observatory, Nautical Almanac Office in 1969 and it was just too much to take in, as you say lots of maths and calculations plus endless tables which weren't relevant here in Australia, I still have the book somewhere around the place.