- Focuses on helping you plan and organize your H400 observing project, with an emphasis on finding the objects with minimal fuss through O'Meara's clear directions and detailed finder charts
- For each of the H400 objects, the author provides the coordinate data, a scaled image, general object description and step-by-step directions
- Includes a handy checklist in the appendix
The Herschel 400 is a list of 400 galaxies, nebulae and star clusters, picked from over 2,500 deep-sky objects discovered and catalogued by the great eighteenth-century astronomer Sir William Herschel and his sister Caroline.
It comprises 231 galaxies, 107 open clusters, 33 globular clusters, 20 planetary nebulae, 2 halves of a single planetary nebula and 7 bright nebulae. In this guide Steve O'Meara takes the observer through the list, season by season, month by month, night by night, object by object. He works through the objects in a carefully planned and methodical way, taking in some of the most dramatic non-Messier galaxies, nebulae and star clusters in the night sky.
Ideal for astronomers who have tackled the Messier objects, this richly illustrated guide will help the amateur astronomer hone their observing skills.
The author Stephen James O'Meara spent much of his early career on the editorial staff of Sky and Telescope before joining Astronomy magazine as its Secret Sky columnist and a contributing editor. An award-winning visual observer, he was the first person to sight Halley's Comet on its return in 1985 and the first to determine visually the rotation period of Uranus.
