Celestial Delights The Best Astronomical Events Through 2020
Celestial Delights is the essential 'TV Guide' for the sky. Through extensive graphics integrated with an eight-year-long calendar of sky events, it provides a look at "don't miss" sky events, mostly for naked-eye and binocular observing. It is
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Celestial Delights
The Best Astronomical Events Through 2020 Third Edition Patrick Mooreʼs
Practical Astronomy Series
Patrick Moore’s Practical Astronomy Series
For further volumes: http://www.springer.com/series/3192
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Celestial Delights
The Best Astronomical Events through 2020 Francis Reddy
Francis Reddy Syneren Technologies Corp. Lanham, MD, USA
ISSN 1431-9756 ISBN 978-1-4614-0609-9 e-ISBN 978-1-4614-0610-5 DOI 10.1007/978-1-4614-0610-5 Springer New York Dordrecht Heidelberg London Library of Congress Control Number: 2011936392 © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2012 All rights reserved. This work may not be translated or copied in whole or in part without the written permission of the publisher (Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, 233 Spring Street, New York, NY 10013, USA), except for brief excerpts in connection with reviews or scholarly analysis. Use in connection with any form of information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed is forbidden. The use in this publication of trade names, trademarks, service marks, and similar terms, even if they are not identified as such, is not to be taken as an expression of opinion as to whether or not they are subject to proprietary rights. Printed on acid-free paper Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com)
For Kari and Sharon, who eagerly share the sky with a new generation.
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Preface
There is a widespread impression that the scientific appreciation of the universe must be left wholly to those who have had years of formal training or who devote a large part of their free time to science as a hobby. It isn’t true, of course, and it’s less true now than ever before. Thanks to the Web, volunteers with little specific training are now assisting scientists in tasks as diverse as classifying galaxies, searching for lunar features, and monitoring bird nesting sites. But you don’t need expensive equipment, a steep investment of free time or even a broadband connection to start observing the heavens. All you need are your eyes. Everyone takes a moment to sky-gaze now and then – admiring the colors of a Sunset, pondering the Man in the Moon or playing connect-the-dots with bright stars. And while most of us are denied the awesome pleasure of a clear, dark country sky far from the tawny glow of city lights, we can still observe the solar system’s brightest members – the Sun, the Moon and five planets. Their ever-changing configurations fascinated and puzzled sky watchers for the first few thousand years of human civilization, a time when the human eye was the primary observing tool. Tracking their wanderings through the sky requires nothing more than good weather and some guidance on when and where to look. That’s where Celestial Delights comes in. It’s a resource that lays out the best, most observable events for years to come and supplies the background necessary to understand and appreciate them. Thi
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