The Stargazer's Bookshelf

 Quarantined as I've been these past several months, staring at my library, I've been thinking a lot about what's on all those shelves. To make a long story short, what do I consider the most important books to have on a stargazer's bookshelf? Here is my very idiosyncratic list.  You are welcome (and in fact encouraged) to counter with your own list. The more, the merrier!

1. Sky and Telescope's Pocket Sky Atlas - Jumbo Edition (An oxymoron if I've ever heard one. I don't know anyone with an 8 1/2 by 11 inch pocket.). I particularly love this version because of its large size, and because it matches pretty much precisely what I see through my 8X56 Celestron binoculars.

2. The Night Sky Observer's Guide, Volumes 1 and 2, by George Robert Kepple and Glen W. Sanner. Whenever I get the (stupid) notion that there's nothing new to see "up there", I pull out these guides to the constellations and realize how little I've actually seen. There's enough in these books to keep anyone busy for several lifetimes of stargazing.

3. URANOMETRIA 2000.0 Deep Sky Atlas, All Sky Edition, for when the S&T pocket atlas doesn't have enough detail. My one wish is that they would publish a mirror imaged version.

4. Atlas of the Moon by Antonín Rükl. Whereas the above volumes supply all the detail you'll realistically ever need on the universe outside of our Solar System, Rükl's masterpiece will do the same for the Moon. The hand drawn maps in this atlas are not only superlatively detailed, but are true works of art. They are beautiful! Sadly, the Atlas of the Moon is currently out of print, but used copies are available (at ridiculous prices) from numerous booksellers on the web. My own copy once graced the shelves of a high school in Huntley, Illinois.

5. The Brightest Stars by Fred Schaaf has several pages of history, lore, and cold hard facts about each of the 21 brightest stars in the sky. Trust me, you'll appreciate much more just looking naked eye at Vega, Antares, Sirius, Arcturus, or whatever after reading this very entertaining book.

6. Voyager by Stephen J. Pyne. Now here we move from the purely "reference book" portion of this list to the more philosophical. Voyager is the finest book I have ever read on the robotic exploration of our Solar System. A deep dive into the origins, rationale, development, and execution of the Voyager missions, with wonderful digressions into history, politics, and the meaning of life.

7. Epic Moon by William P. sheehan and Thomas A. Dobbins. I cannot praise this book highly enough. As the subtitle says, "A History of Lunar Exploration in the Age of the Telescope", it ranges from Galileo to NASA's mapping of the lunar surface in preparation for the Apollo landings.

8. Imagining Mars, a Literary History, by Robert Crossley. Mars is more than dark smudges on an orange disk in your eyepiece. It is a world that has punched far above its weight in the human imagination over the past 2 centuries. Extremely entertaining, and you'll never look at the Red Planet in the same way again, ever.

9. Let There Be Night, ed. by Paul Bogard. A collection of essays on why preserving our dark skies is so important, and not just for stargazing. This is not a dry polemic or an ecologist's Jeremiad, but a deeply human look into why we need for night to be dark.

10. A Portfolio of Lunar Drawings, by Harold Hill. A glorious reminder that star (and Moon) gazing is more than just a hobby, but can be a window into a world of beauty and wonder far beyond what we encounter in most of our daily lives, and is accessible to most everyone.

So there's my list. What have I missed? What's on your shelf?