Printed sky atlases - recommendations

[Lismore Bloke]

"What do you want Santa to bring you?" I've been asked.

A good modern star atlas would be good. I have plenty of computer programs, but I still like to use the paper version. The only one I have is Sky Atlas 2000.0, early edition. Is Uranometria the best comprehensive atlas for DSO's? Thanks for any advice, Paul.

[astro744]

I also have Sky Atlas 2000.0 ver.1 Deluxe and have been wanting to upgrade to ver. 2 Deluxe for its extra stars. Mag 8.5 over 8.0 almost doubles the star count. I think ver. 2 also has labels on bright stars (deluxe). The deluxe is is colour and is quite nice and easy to follow. The field guide (companion book) is also well worth considering as it lists objects by chart number.

Uranometria 2000.0 has 9.75mag stars and a nice scale. It has almost too many DSO's mostly faint galaxies that sometimes clutter the pages but are a good reference for imagers. It also has smaller scale finder charts. It is a very nice Atlas in two volumes with a Field Guide (vol.3) listing each object by chart number.

Millennium Star Atlas has 11mag stars and is in three volumes. The hard cover edition is no longer available and the soft cover version does not always stay flat when open. A very good reference atlas to have in an observatory.

If your telescope is say 8" or under go the Ver 2 Deluxe Sky Atlas. If 10-12" or greater go the Uranometria.

[Paddy]

I have Sky atlas 2000 and was wondering about Uranometria, largely because the sky atlas seems to be missing so many things that I want to look at. I was keen to have a look at Uranometria at VicSouth, but having come across and bought the "Night Sky Observer's Guide" I find its star maps are more than sufficient to find what I want at the moment (and I suspect for the next 20 years or so) and I've put the Uranometria on hold.

[barx1963]

I use Uranometria and think it is brilliant. Although large, it is comprehensive and accurate and very easy to use in the dark.

[astro744]

Yes. The Night Sky Observer's Guide Vol 1,2 & 3 are excellent even though they are not star charts as such although they do have detailed maps and descriptions of many objects as seen through various sized instruments. More suited to large aperture owners but a wonderful recource.

[Terry B]

I have the millenium star atlas in 3 volumes. They look great on the bookshelf but I never use them anymore. Planetarium software and EQMOD is so much easier.

[dpastern]

I have both Sky 2000, Uranometria and Millenium Star Atlas (hard cover) also the Bobroff atlas too. I think Uranometria will suffice to behonest. Millenium is overkill, and you can't get it anymore I believe. The bobroff is very nice, but you can't get it it seems...both Millenium and Bobroff are as rare as hens teeth on the 2nd hand market it seems too.

Dave

edit: have you considered one of the free star charts that you can download and printing and binding it yourself?

[Lismore Bloke]

Thanks for the replies everyone. Yes Dave, I printed off one of JR Torres' atlases to A3 at work. It took forever - huge!! Uranometria for the southern hemisphere might be the go, especially if someone in the family is getting it for me as a present.:thumbsup:

[dpastern]

Uranometria is pretty good and the paper is semi heavyweight too. It's a good volume.

Dave

[ngcles]

Hi Paul,

Have you considered the Tri-atlas?

http://www.uv.es/jrtorres/index.html

Download the .pdf files for free -- all you have to organise is the printing and binding. N.B when I say free it is in fact a free and gratis download.

Maybe download a sample.pdf, take it to a professional printer and ask how much to do the "A" "B" and "C" set in A4 and other size options at 600dpi with various binding options and I'll bet it's cheaper than Uranometria even at large scale on top quality paper. When you discuss binding options I think it is a good idea to get something that will lay flat when opened.

If a few people get together and say a half-dozen or even a dozen were done, you might find it's cheaper again. The down-side is the Uranometria Deep Sky Field Guide won't interface with it.

Looks very good to me ...

Can't argue with the price.


Best,

Les D

[Lismore Bloke]

Thanks Les, that's the one I did at work, the JR Torres C Atlas, 570 pages enlarged to A3!! It really did take forever. I coil bound it into 3 volumes.

I haven't examined the contents of the Uranometria books yet, how do they compare with the Torres one, in terms of their coverage of DSO's? If they are similar in content I will pick another astro pressie! Thanks, Paul.

[dpastern]

The Torres will have more detail than Uranometria to be honest.

Dave

[pgc hunter]

I have the hard cover Millenium Star Atlas and it always sees use in the field. Uranometria 2000 has more DSOs but with a stellar limiting mag of 9.75 it has 1/3rd the number of stars in MSA and it might prove inadequete for starhopping to faint DSOs with a 10-12" scope. For that reason, if I had to choose just 1 atlas, I'd go with MSA, besides it still has some 10,000 DSOs which should keep anyone occupied for damn long time! :)

[Coen]

As mentioned by others, the Tri-Atlas is a great set of maps and I find the Hybrid set (the cross between B & C) at 210ish odd maps printed double-sided at A3 and then loosely bound is fantastic around the scope and has more than enough detail with stars down to about 11th magnitude if I recall correctly. There are a couple of (minor) errors but nothing to detract from it.

There is a new set that is labelled Panorama and is somewhat between A & B I think, perhaps a bit closer to the B set and takes care of some of the clutter than can occur around the Carina region (for example).

[Lismore Bloke]

Hello Coen and thanks for the info:thumbsup:

I haven't look at JR's website for a while and wasn't aware that there was a sort of crossover atlas. I must admit the C atlas is a bit of a monster. Will investigate!!

[GrahamL]

Hi Paul

I have uranometria 1&2 first edition , your most welcome to have a look over you'd like .

the first editions page layout was later changed , but I have no trouble useing it as is.. Content wise its great and easy to follow, it
does sure go deep enough for our needs and is fairly compact.

The bad news.. is you will need both books :)
as from where we are theres still a lot of sky available to us thats referanced in that northern edition.

[pgc hunter]

The tri atlas is very good, but unfortunately the author has decided to place ticks connecting labels to their respective objects which I find adds unneccesary clutter.

[mithrandir]

In some parts of the C maps, there is so much detail, any labels just add to the clutter.

There seem to be a couple of patterns to the ticks. Not everything has them.
1) where an object has more than one name - NCC4755, Kappa Crucis cluster, Jewel Box
2) where the object named by the label might be ambiguous so as to identify the correct object

[pgc hunter]

IN many cases ticks are still used in areas with sparese DSO population, when the label is alredy right next to the corresponding DSO. IMO it would be a much cleaner and more user friendly map without such over the top use of ticks. In populated areas it is necessary, but not for every single object as labels can be placed right next to a few before room runs out.

[Lismore Bloke]

Thanks Graham. The maps certainly seem to be nice and clear. I have the JR Torres C atlas printed off, but it is probably too detailed. I think Santa may bring me the southern hemisphere Uranometria!! I'm still not sure what we can meet up, there is so much family stuff happening. One wedding down, a 21st birthday, another wedding early next year. They then move to London and we get their furniture for 3 years!! Plus the whole lot are home with us for Christmas. Been doing nothing but clean out all our old crap. Not much time or money for astronomy. Still don't know how I got 5 Naglers through this year.

[glenc]

I have Uranometria 1 (south of dec+6) and Herald-Bobroff .
U2 is better than U1 because the adjacent pages in U1 do not match.
The labels in HB are sometimes a long way from the object but it is great for the LMC & SMC.
The Millenium Star Atlas has less DSO than Uranometria.
See http://www.gaherty.ca/rogers/Uranometria.htm
"Rather than repeat their 1987 efforts, the editors of the new 2001 edition of Uranometria (which I’ll call "Uranometria2") have absorbed the best ideas of their competitors and responded by producing something almost entirely new. Instead of a single set of 473 one-page charts, all the same scale and arranged counterintuitively by increasing right ascension, they have gone to a smaller number of 220 two-page charts, arranged by decreasing right ascension, so that the sky continues from the right side of one chart onto the left side of the next. They have supplemented these 220 basic charts with a 22-page mini-atlas at the front of each volume, plus 26 larger scale charts for areas where objects are too dense to plot on the scale of the main charts. This is a compromise between the 1548 uniform scale charts of Millennium and the six different scales found in Herald-Bobroff. Finally, they have beaten every other atlas out in the "faint fuzzy" sweepstakes, by including three times as many deep sky objects as any previous atlas."

[JimmyH155]

I use Herald Bobroff - it has those different scales so you can choose how much "Zoom" you want. It has more objects than I will ever want. :DOnly trouble is it is so huge. :) I leave it open in my patio, then 10 metres to the scope, then back to the atlas, stuff up my night vision, lose the star I was looking for........:mad2:........