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by Patrick Moore
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 2001.
209 pp., illus
Trade, $32.95 US; paper, $18.95 US.
ISBN: 0-521-79052-2; 0-521-79445-5
Reviewed by David Topper. The University of Winnipeg. Winnipeg, MB R3B 2E9 Canada. E-mail: Topper@Uwinnipeg.ca


Anyone with a fascination for viewing the night sky will peruse this book with joy. Although occasionally mentioning things to see with binoculars or a telescope, Moore concentrates almost exclusively on naked eye observations. Since most "guide" books do not always clearly distinguish between those objects that can and cannot be seen with the naked eye, this book will prove very useful for many observers, such as myself, who do not have access to a telescope. This book tells exactly what we can see. Well almost (see below).

Ptolemy classified 48 constellations in the night sky as he knew it, in what constituted the ancient "world." Today we have 88 seen from throughout the world. They all appear in 24 key chapters with star maps showing the monthly constellations as seen in each hemisphere. Three other chapters display what can be seen from the North Pole and South Pole regions and near the Equator. Each constellation is clearly described, with illustrations showing the major and minor stars. The final chapters are on the Sun, Moon, planets, comets, meteors, and "Glows in the Sky," namely auroras, the Zodiacal light, and so forth. There are useful appendices, such as a list of the Latin and English names of all the constellations.

We now know (that is since the late 1920s) that almost everything we see in the sky at night is within our Milky Way galaxy. All visible stars and star clusters are in our galaxy. The questionable things are the few little blurs in the sky: what the ancients appropriately called nebulous (or vague and fuzzy) objects - nebulae, for short. In the mid-1920s Edwin Hubble first showed that the nebula in Andromeda is really a galaxy external to our Milky Way. In subsequent decades further nebulae turned out to be galaxies too, although some, such as the nebula in Orion is just that, a mass of hot gases and infant stars within our Milky Way. This means that the Andromeda Galaxy is one of the few objects we can see with the naked eye that is actually outside our galaxy (and over 2 million light years away, by the way). What else can we see? Moore mentions the two Clouds of Magellan, visible in the Southern Hemisphere, which also are galaxies. He notes that some have claimed (although he doubts it) to be able to see the Spiral in Triangulum (M33), a galaxy, but only under ideal conditions. In light of this issue, I posed this question to an Internet astronomy group and several people said they too have seen the Triangulum Spiral, as well as the galaxies NGC253 (in the constellation Sculptor) and M81 (in Ursa Major). So there are only three or perhaps six objects outside our Milky Way visible to the naked eye. That's all. This is a fascinating fact that I'm sure is not well known.

Another possibility of viewing an external object would be if a supernova appeared in another galaxy. The last time this happened was in 1987 in the Large Cloud of Magellan. Before that the only nova visible to the naked eye was what we affectionately call "Kepler's nova" of 1604, since the famed astronomer studied it closely. Before that was "Tycho's nova" of 1572, which launched his career. But both of these were in our galaxy. This also means that statistically we are due for one "soon."

Lastly, and unfortunately, I'm sad to say that I was shocked to find an archaic and offensive term for a deaf person in this book. Where, pray tell, was the editor?

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