Stars and Planets: The Sierra Club Guide to Sky Watching

Product Review

Stars and Planets shows step by step how to locate bright stars, planets, and constellations with the naked eye -- from anywhere on Earth. This easy-to-use handbook requires no astronomical equipment and is suitable for both beginning and advanced star gazers. Stars and Planets also introduces the reader to new stars, variable stars, comets. meteors, and other night sky phenomena.

Features include:
-- 25 tables and 80 illustrations, including easy-to-read constellation maps
-- A calendar for the phases of the moon and the position of the five naked-eye planets to the year 2000 and beyond
-- A new simple method of finding and identifying the stars that remain visible in or near cities even under a full moon
-- How to identify more than 20 constellations using only your hand for measuring How to find Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn
-- How celestial navigators accurately fix their position from the heavenly bodies
-- How to get compass direction from the sun and stars by different methods anywhere in the world. day or night
-- A pronouncing gazeteer for stars and constellations

Customer Reviews

Average Customer Review

(3 customer reviews)

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful

A great beginner's book for stargazing!, March 9, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Stars and Planets: The Sierra Club Guide to Sky Watching and Direction Finding (Paperback)

If you know nothing about stargazing and are looking for a book to get started, then this book is for you. W. S. Kals shows you his system in an easy to understand manner. Other books sometimes don't let you see the forest for the trees, but this book gives you the big picture. This is an extremely well written book

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

Unlocking the Night Sky, October 28, 2009

Oscar Gaube (Montreal Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Stars and Planets: The Sierra Club Guide to Sky Watching and Direction Finding (Paperback)

20 years ago I was lost when I looked up into the night sky until I found this book .
It simplified all the star charts and millions of stars into four simple sets of bright stars that are visible even in city skies one for the spring, summer winter and fall.
One of the aaah! moments is that once you know them they are always the same year after year.
It was from that moment I started to feel I was at home whenever I looked up at the night sky.
Outstanding memory aids are included with simple ditties to remember the patterns.
Since then I have purchased a telescope and continue to explore the universe with thanks to this book.
Oscar Gaube

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful

Good system, bad design, October 28, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Stars and Planets: The Sierra Club Guide to Sky Watching and Direction Finding (Paperback)

The system outlined in this book is very persuasive, but if clarity is the defining cryterium for saying it is "well written" then I'm sorry to say this book was not so good, at least for me. The diagrams were rather "amateur" and I noticed that it was written a few years ago - some of the tables only go to the year 2000 (from 1990).