An Anthology of Visual Double Stars

I am an amateur observer of many years who prefers stargazing the simple way, with my main interests leaning towards galaxies, star clusters, and nebulae. For the last few years though, I've been trying to cultivate an interest in double stars to have things to look for on nights when I can't escape the local light pollution. Aside from a few colorful and famous doubles though, I tend to break down, not knowing for sure if I'm seeing the real double or just a couple of stars. And really, what's the thrill in "a couple of stars close together?"This book is just what I've been needing. Other books I've found tend to resemble a numerical computer printout, or just read dry as dust. This one starts with about 50 pages of background info which I'm going to enjoy digging into before it gets to it's catalog of 175 double stars. Each one is given a couple of pages with background and historical information on each star, making it much more interesting than simple lists of position angles, separations, and magnitudes. A finder chart is included for each star, although you (I) will usually need to locate that chart's location on a larger star atlas before heading out into the dark. Many of the stars have one of those little diagrams showing the secondary star's orbit around the primary.This isn't a coffee table book or a visual feast, but it's the most engaging and useful book I've seen to help me wade into and master this special field of observing.

Excellent book to understand what others have observed. I Love to read about the specific stars right after I’ve observed the double with my Explore Scientific ED 152APO Refractor.I’m cruising through the Astronomical League Double Star Observing program and many of the stars are referenced in this book plus more!Fantastic reference that verifies my observations.Thanks for a great reference tool.

Very nice quality book, delightfully bigger than I expected. The information is in-depth, well put together, and a pleasure to read.There’s 472 pages containing great historic information about early and modern observers and catalogs, as well as interesting details about measurement techniques. Then the catalog details of each target is wonderful!It’s a new must have for double star observers!

It has fewer objects than I thought it would, and seems to be more of a historical text than a technical one that is useful for observing these objects. I thought it would have more "eyepiece descriptions". Overall, though, it is a quite useful text and reference for a relatively small number of binary stars. Some of these are only in the reach of larger telescopes.

Very good content! My only issue was that it doesn't describe the WDS categorization enough at all to allow you to search for stars you know. This book is also not updated to show certain double stars that are now prominent in the sky (at least from what I saw after looking up their wds numbers and searching for them). I would recommend this book if you love data, but definitely not for those who enjoy fun facts, designs, extensive exposition or easy guides for location

Likes: the authors provide a history of the observations of many double stars as well as their physical characteristics. I also liked that for each double, the names & location of nearby double stars is mentioned.Dislikes: a) Only after purchasing the book did I realize that it is geared specifically for the hard-core double star observer, as evidenced by the fact that a substantial number of the 175 DSs covered have separations of less than 2-3 seconds; not a few are in the sub-arcsecond category. To split these doubles or even see a clear elongation requires, among reflectors, telescopes in the 8-inch category at a minimum, with instruments in the 10 - 16-inch range even better, capable of providing magnifications of several hundred. Considering the book's title, and with many thousands to choose from, why did the authors select so many tight doubles that cannot be split by novice amateur astronomers who typically have smaller telescopes?b) the authors are not very good writers (or else they need a better editor!). The text is sometimes confusing, nothing like the clear, concise narrative of Burnham or even O'Meara.

Unclear is why the book has page numbers to distract one from the separate numbering system by object. Also unclear is the odd organizational structure. It is as if the goal was to obfuscate finding interesting doubles and multiples to view. But with some work it is indeed helpful.