The Practical Astronomer: Explore the Wonders of the Night Sky Hardcover – Import, 1 Jun. 2010

This is a lovely, easy to read book that will guide you into astronomy in a very fun way. For starters the whole presentation of the contents is done the the legendary DK fashion, so richly illustrated and sketched in full colour so as to give an attractive visual aid to what is being said. Then as you wade deeper into it, you will find it a very engrossing read that demystifies many things about astronomy that hitherto one only heard but never fully understood. It has the right balance between scientific accuracy and nice, easy layman-oriented language that is easy to digest. It is divided into seven chapters. The final two are references with comprehensive star charts for both hemispheres and a reference tables section and it ends with an adequately detailed glossary. It is also reasonably priced and suitable for all age groups. I enjoy both reading through it and cherrypicking topics as needed, in the way you consult any reference manual. I think its an easy five stars and recommend it to those of us who do not have a university degree in astronomy yet have the passion to take it up as a hobby.

This is a great introduction to astronomy. I just sat and read the whole book over the last two days and thoroughly enjoyed it. The book is beautifully written and presented, and is very thorough with its content. The authors start totally from the beginning, but you never feel patronised because of the complexity of the subject.I now understand much of the astronomy jargon that you hear around the place, and have a much greater understanding of objects visible from earth. Very Glad I bought this book.

This is a superb book superbly produced, and would make an excellent present. It is a joy, in these days of tatty paperbacks and easily forgotten 'downloads' to have in hand a really well thought out, and well put together 'hardback' printed beautifully upon high quality paper. The information contained is comprehensive, and very good, and forms a well founded starting point for further study in cosmology etc... It looks, feels and presents itself like a book far more expensive than it is.

Lovely hardback book with excellent images. A great start to astronomy for me, with info on what binoculars and telescopes to buy, and how to set it up. Nice star charts and a lot of info on what to see depending on what equipment you have.

Love it, love it, love it! Perfect for beginner, who has no idea and want to learn about astronomy. Really like the bit where they describe the difference between the types of telescopes. Personally I find this book very helpful :) And it arrived before the estimated day, which was great!

I have always been interested in Astronomy since I was a child. I have watched programmes on TV but until now I have not bought my own book on the subject and this book is well worth getting. It explains everything clearly and the colour photography is wonderful to look at. I will really enjoy reading this time and again!

I had this book out from my library and have kept it for 3 months and now they want it back, so i have just bought it from Amazon as it is one of the best books that i have used, i have had over 10 different books based on astronomy and what i have found is no one book has all the information on all the things you may be interested in, but there are some books that i could not do without and this is one of them, turn left at orion (4th edition) due for release in July 2011 is another book and another is the Philips STARGAZING 2011 month-by-month guide to the northern night sky and finally download STELLARIUM form the net it is awesome.

This is a nicely structured and nicely presented book, explaining the phenomena of universe in a non-technical yet not too simplistic fashion. It gives practical hints how to find galaxies and constellations in the sky and gives you all the information you need to be confidently navigating through the night skies. Even my 6-year old son enjoyed it, at least the graphical pages outlaying constellations.