New book for Southern Hemisphere Imaging

[Jon (Jonathan)]

I thought I'd report here the review I have just posted on Amazon:

This book has quickly taken pride of place in my astronomy library. As an amateur astronomer and astroimager with bold aspirations but only developing experience, this book was an invaluable guide. The fact that, living in Canberra, I have access to the half of the heavens with all the best deep sky objects ;-), that are neglected in so many other books, makes Chadwick and Cooper's simply indispensable.

The book acknowledges its inspiration and model as Ruiben Kier's The 100 Best Astrophotography Targets. Kiers book is excellent in its own right (if somewhat poorly titled: it should be The 100 Best Astrophotography Targets Visible from North America). Chadwick and Cooper adopt a similar structure to Kier, with Part 1 comprising individual entries on and photographs of over 130 deep sky objects, and Part 2 being a general coverage of equipment, imaging technique, and processing.

The second section is well-written, and has clear and informative advice for both the beginner and more experienced imager. This sort of advice is available in many other places: Kier's book, for instance, has a very similar section; while Charles Bracken's book The Deep Sky Imaging Primer (released February 2013), as a stand-alone general text with no coverage of particular targets, treats all these issues in considerably more depth. Chadwick and Cooper's section is very much focused on practical advice, and as such is extremely helpful. For instance, the section on factors to weigh up when calculating the duration of sub-exposures, while only a few pages long, contained rules of thumb potentially more useful to most amateurs than the many pages of technical data to do with calculation of precise signal-to-noise ratios based on sensor temperature, or the exact equation linking arc-second resolution with pixel size, as can be found in technical manuals on the subject.

Where the book really comes into its own is in Part 1, the survey of the best targets in the Southern skies. Here the authors succeed in providing individual object entries that are all at once engaging, practical, useful and inspiring. There are five components to each entry:

1) Name, designation, position and constellation

Fairly standard, except that the authors have chosen to enliven the drab catalogue designations which grace most Southern hemisphere objects with more descriptive titles named from history (e.g. John Herschel's identification of the "Keyhole Nebula" in NGC3372), from Southern indigenous cultures (e.g. the "Dark Emu" that runs from its head, the Coalsack in Crux, down to Scorpius), through to names bestowed by amateur and professional astronomers that have "stuck" (e.g. the "Toby Jug Nebula" IC2220).

2) Description

This section gives a brief account of the nature of the object, its size and magnitude (crucial for decisions about framing). Sometimes there is a little history, and a discussion of how the object looks at the eyepiece.

3) Imaging

This is the really gutsy part of the book. All the stuff here is practical and directly useful to the imager looking for guidance: "This globular cluster is best imaged with a camera/scope setup that provides a field of view of no more than 50' x 30'" (NGC4372), "Accurate flats are required when imaging this object to ensure that all gradients are remove in order to bring out the faint galactic tails" (NGC 4038-39), "Exposure times must be kept short in order to prevent the saturation of the brightest stars in the cluster and the introduction of false bluish color around them" (IC 2602).

4) One or more images

The images themselves are beautiful and worth the price of the book. One of the best things about them is that they are all images taken by the authors, and give a real indication of what is achievable with a particular equipment in range of the amateur.


5) Technical details of the images

Telescope, focal length, F-ratio, camera, exposure details, binning, field size. One of the great things about this book is that the range of equipment is all within reach. In other books, I despair at some of the image technical specifications ("12 x 100 min subs taken with a 90 cm Takahashi Superdupe with a XBY!#&D CCD cooled with liquid hydrogen to -200 degrees with solid platinum filter wheel, on a Paramountain Excelsior 12-tonne pier" or somesuch). The telescopes used are all available for under $5000 (some considerably less); the mounts used are EQ6 and Losmandy Titan; and the cameras are QHY and QSI CCDs in the $2k to $5k price range. There is also extensive advice aimed at the DSLR imager. So the equipment is very much in line with that available to the serious amateur; and someone who can put an 80mmn refractor or 8" reflector or SCT on an EQ6 mount and can afford $2k for a bottom-end CCD or goodish modded DSLR will get a great deal of guidance and inspiration from this book.

[allan gould]

Got my book today and to say I'm impressed is an understatement. Excellent coverage of many great objects and clear descriptions of imaging etc. the only complaint would be common to many of the Moore series is that the printing of objects does not do justice to the photos taken. It's obvious that the submitted photos were of a far better quality than the final printing. That said the images are not that bad and in some cases very good.
Allan

[DJT (David)]

Mine arrived last night and what a great little book. Like the fact the authors will indicate if a dslr will be able to capture an object well, not just CCD. Really useful.

[scagman (John)]

I received my copy on friday last week and I too think it is a great book. As a relative new comer to this wonderfull hobby I think it is a great way to help decide what targets to tackle with the setup you have

I would recommend this book to anyone. If you are just starting out and wondering what equipment to get, this book has a great run down on different types of gear and what to expect to be able to image with it.

Cheers

[PRejto (Peter)]

I have a couple of questions.

One of the reviews on Amazon comments on the low quality of the printed edition, and a review here hints at that but isn't quite as critical.

Has anyone here used the electronic version? I would imagine the photo quality might be quite good compared to the print version. Also, Amazon says it's for a Kindle. Silly question (?) Will it play in an iPad?

Peter

[Jon (Jonathan)]

My copy is the Kindle edition on the iPad. Pictures are great.

I will confess that I liked this book so much I ordered the hard copy. A big disappointment - the quality is much worse in print.

[chrisp9au (Chris)]

Check out the pricing at Abe Books.
http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/Sear...e+Southern+Sky

Chris

[Suzy]

I have this book too and is one of my most favourites.
It's not just for imagers. It's also extremely helpful for visual observers too (like me) as it gives a well written account of the object's description. It doesn't waffle on so it keeps my interest peaked. Well laid out so it's easy to follow.

There are far too few books on our glorious southern sky, so this book is LONG OVERDUE!

Jonathan that is a brilliant review- it should be put in the "Equipment Reviews" section (see blue menu bar on left) of this forum with a link to this thread.

Mike?