Catalogue of the Universe

The book`s title says it all. It is a comprehensive review of examples of the many diverse and wondrous objects contained in our Universe, most illustrated with b & w, and some colour photos by the renowned astrophotographer David Malin. Like the classic Powers of Ten, it begins with the macro view of clusters of galaxies, then zooms in to galaxies, galactic objects, solar system objects and finally near-earth objects and phenomena: meteor showers, zodiacal light, and meteorites and tektites. Many unique and little known facts and objects are presented and the text is clearly written at a layman`s level, despite covering some advanced topics (ie similar to Burnham`s Celestial Handbook, but more current).I have been an amateur astromomer for 30 years, and still found much new to me in this book, and a source of many new potential targets for my telescope. The only thing lacking is no positional data is published, so a good star atlas and an index or program that can access professional catalogue references as well as obscure common names (such as the Toby mug nebula or the fingerprint nebula) will be necessary to use this book as a field guide. Fortunately, many such sources are now available on CD-ROM or on-line, but it would have been useful to include them with the text or in an appendix, as well as a more complete list of professional catalogues - a brief review mentions the Messier and NGC, but the text makes reference to many others.The dust jacket blurb says ``It is an important new reference source and a highly original book``. I fully concur.