365 Starry Nights: An Introduction to Astronomy for Every Night of the Year

I love it! Chet Raymo imbues this delightful book with reverence, understanding, wonder, joy, science, and legend all at once. He guides you through the sky night by night, acquainting you with the major constellations and pointing out objects of beauty, interest, and mystery throughout. Best of all, he confines himself to subjects you can see with the naked eye or a very modest telescope; he never sets you up for disappointment by taunting you with things you'd need a huge telescope and infinite patience to see, and wouldn't believe you'd found even then. Raymo's artwork reflects his love of the sky, drawing as much from history, mythology, and imagination as from science. Nevertheless, he also lucidly presents science that's missing from hordes of more pretentious books. I defy anyone who's curious about astronomy to read this book and not be infected by Raymo's enthusiasm.To me, "365 Starry Nights" reflects the same spirit as Robert Burnham's timeless "Celestial Handbook," while addressing an audience daunted by the prospect of 2,100 pages. For readers caught between H. A. Rey's brilliant "Where the Stars Are" and Burnham's magnum opus, "365 Starry Nights" has no equal. If it had an index, it would be perfect.

This is a book that's hard to put down. You can always read the entry for today, but if you're like me you won't be able to resist opening to random days and learning about the science, history, and mythology surronding the stars and constellations. Can't say enough about this book.

Chet Raymo takes a Reader's Digest approach to Astronomy and presents the wonders of the universe in an enjoyable and easy to read manner. The book is divided into 365 segments to give a clear picture of the sky every night of the year. This is an Excellent book to learn the sky and constellations. The main focus of the book is naked eye astronomy, but would also be useful for binocular and small telescope observers. The book is full of hundreds of charts, drawings, and maps that help in explaining the night sky. Rather than sitting down and reading this book from cover to cover, I enjoy reading this book throughout the year. 365 Starry Nights would be a good book for a beginner astronomer, or anyone who enjoys the night skies.

This book is an excellent source for learning sky and the constellations on a month by month basis. Includes some interesting history of astronomy, including some of the authors own thoughts on why certain constellations have taken on their historical and existing configurations. Locates some easy and some hard objects. I used it for binocular viewing before I bought my large telescope. Still use it every week. This book is a must for astronomers and star gazers.