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Re: Star Hoppers Guide to the Galaxy free book 364 pages


 

Great stuff, John.?
Looked at Jim¡¯s website and skimmed over the Starhoppers Guide. Great stuff. Will be saving that download. ?
Mark



On Thu, May 29, 2025 at 12:04 PM, John A. Sillasen via groups.io < jasillasen@...> wrote:

Dear TAAS:

?Go to the website URL below (it's safe) and download the Star Hoppers Guide to the Galaxy free 32MB PDF book that is a whopping 364pages long with hyperlinks.? ?An incredible guide to deep sky objects.? ?There is even a 27-minute video describing the book.

I watched the video first just to see what was what. Obviously, my first choice of reading materials for the new observer is still NightWatch by Terence Dickinson.  This new 4th Edition was a worthy follow up to my aging Edition from the way back machine. 

Still a free 384 page PDF complete with star charts is an ambitious project.  A lot of the materials come from Mazur's outreach handouts. The book is well thought out. 
Naturally my book won't stand up to the Maid of the Mist efforts to make all my ink run off the page but in daylight or indoors, it is quite impressive.

?John Sillasen

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?

Contact Name
James Yoder
Email: jty.astro@...

Subject: Free Astronomy PDF book

Message

The Star Hopper¡¯s Guide to the Galaxy is a free PDF book created for astronomers in the northern hemisphere who do not have a GoTo telescope or are interested in finding objects using the star hopping technique.

?The book along with additional resources can be downloaded from the ArtCentrics website at? 

The book primarily consists of star hop instruction sheets developed by Jim Mazur that were initially made available on his website Skyledge.net.? This compilation contains over 170 instruction sheets with over 250 objects.? Each sheet contains two star charts; the first chart is used to help orient you to the night sky and immediate area around the target using familiar constellations or asterisms such as the Big Dipper, the Summer Triangle, or the Great Square of Pegasus.? The second chart is a detailed road map on how to hop to the highlighted objects. Information on the targeted objects is provided, as well as a small image of the object, when available.

The book is organized by constellations and the targets within the constellation.? Each constellation has a page that summarizes the targets in the constellation along with a table listing basic information on each of the objects.? The table includes the name of the object, the type of the object, links to the finder chart (within the book, and on the Skyledge.net website), aliases for the object, and some basic stats such as magnitude, separation (in the case of multiple stars), surface brightness, and size.? A chart highlighting the constellation is also provided on the page along with online links to Wikipedia articles where more information on each of the targets can be found.? The constellation summary page is followed by an image gallery where images for many of the targets are provided for reference.

?The book was specifically developed to be printed out so it can be taken out in the field.? One can print out sections as needed, or print the entire book and place it in a binder or have it spiral bound.? Additional functionality is available when utilizing the book on a PC or smart device such as an iPad. Many links with additional information are available throughout the book with the purpose of providing in depth information either in preparation of a viewing session, or additional research after a viewing session.

?The book is copyrighted under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 law, so it can be freely printed and distributed provided there is no profit involved.

We think this book will be a valuable tool to help the observational astronomer have a productive viewing session.

James Yoder, Andrea Matthias, Jim Mazur

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