Hi all,

Some of you may have heard of Phil Harrington's "Touring the Universe through Binoculars" which was published a little over 10 years ago. It is a comprehensive tour of all the constellations and lists binoculars highlights for observers in each one. The only drawback was that the book did not contain any charts.

At a later stage, Phil decided to bring out a sky charting package with Dean Williams. The software plotted all the objects listed in the book and allows you print charts to hunt down these deep-sky delights.

The software can now be downloaded FREE from www.philharrington.net/tuba.htm (6Mb download).

The list of objects is a text file extracted from the WinZip archive and I was able to convert it into SkyMap Pro format which is dead handy 8-)

Harrington's book is well worth seeking out on www.bookfinder.com. Binocular users might also enjoy Craig Crossen's "Binocular Astronomy" and "Sky Vistas" -- the latter book of Crossen's is for giant binoculars.

atb,

John

Lovely Job John, thanks for sending this on, I did'nt know the charts exisited, but I was aware of the book. I'm finding that I'm doing more bibnocular observing now rather than with the scopes so this will come in very useful !

Thanks again,
Keith..

Link to the best guide to binocular observing:

shopatsky.com/prodinfo.asp?number=59430

Excellent, I remember you talking in depth about that book before John. Nice to see an accompanying piece of software with it now. Is this something the Binocular Challenge is going to fear?

No fears Seanie I have a slightly updated edition of the Handbook available but haven't put it on the web yet as I need to figure out how to compress it down from a 3.5Mb pdf.

The Handbook has been translated into Italian, Czech, Swedish, and French, and there's been contact to publish it in Dutch and Spanish ... pretty good 8-)

Mark, the Seronik book is good in that it's a reprint of the best of Gary's Observing Highlights columns over the last few years in Sky and Telescope. Gary was over in Clifden last year but didn't have time make contact with anyone here in the Irish astro community. I'd still consider the best guide to be the two publications by Craig Crossen ... highly recommended to purchase them if at all possible. "Binocular Astronomy" by Crossen has the added bonus of Wil Tirion's Mag 6 star atlas bundled with it.

Probably the ultimate resource is the Binocular Forum on www.cloudynights.com

atb,

John

The Handbook has been translated into Italian, Czech, Swedish, and French, and there's been contact to publish it in Dutch and Spanish ... pretty good 8-)

Your own Bino Handbook from the Challenges? :shock:

Your own Bino Handbook from the Challenges?

Sure has Seanie ... had various e-mails from amateur astronomers in other countries who wanted to do the translation. It's been linked to on a Turkish amateur astronomy forum too (Hillside Su??????????) Great to be able to share all the Challenge Handbooks with other fellow skywatchers worldwide.

Mike and I have had requests to for the Messier and Novice Challenges respectively in Dutch and Czeck, but that's about it (as far as I know). I never even thought about requesting a foreign language copy from the person(s) who requested them either. I should have...

Seanie.

So Gary Seronik was over in Clifden last year John !!!!!
Clifden is my home town.
I could have been sitting beside him having a pint in the Abbey Glen and never knew it.