Secrets of Stargazing

Here's the perfect how-to book for recreational stargazers. Its loaded with practical advice to help new observers spend more time exploring the night sky and less time fumbling with equipment or wondering how, when, and what to observe. In Secrets of Stargazing you'll discover how to: · Quickly get started stargazing if you're the lucky recipient of a new telescope · Plan your observing sessions and record your observations · Star gaze in the city despite the lights · Quickly and easily collimate and polar align your telescope · Use star charts and discover star-hopping · See faint objects without actually looking at them · Observe in comfort · Decipher weather reports and understand sky transparency and seeing conditions · Find others in your area who share your love of the night sky.Whether or not you own a telescope, Secrets of Stargazing is loaded with tips and tricks that are guaranteed to make you a better observer. Its a volume that no novice stargazer should be without.

A dedication to observing and luring the faintest dim fuzzies from the sky into her eyepiece is what makes Becky Ramotowski tick. Her interest in astronomy began at an early age when her parents used to roust her and two younger sisters out of warm beds to watch meteor showers, lunar eclipses, and comets. Since then, she's never stopped looking at the sky. Recently she made history by spotting the planet Mercury during daylight without optical aid.Becky writes a weekly astronomy column for the San Antonio Express-News and has written for Night Sky magazine. She's also into astroimaging with film and digital cameras and has had photos published in Sky & Telescope and Night Sky. She does most of her skywatching from her home in New Mexico (where she lives with five telescopes and her husband Shane) but makes an annual pilgrimage to the dark skies of the Texas Star Party.