Burnham's Celestial Handbook, Volume One: An Observer's Guide to the Universe Beyond the Solar System

by Robert Burnham Jr.

Overview

While there are many books on stars, there is only one Celestial Handbook. Now completely revised through 1977, this unique and necessary reference is available once again to guide amateur and advanced astronomers in their knowledge and enjoyment of the stars.
Volume I of this comprehensive three-part guide to the thousands of celestial objects outside our solar system ranges from Andromeda through Cetus. Objects are grouped according to constellation, and their definitions feature names, coordinates, classifications, and physical descriptions. After an extensive introduction in Volume I, which gives the beginner enough information to follow about 80 percent of the body of the material, the author gives comprehensive coverage to the thousands of celestial objects outside our solar system that are within the range of telescopes in the two- to twelve-inch range.
The objects are grouped according to the constellations in which they appear. Each constellation is divided into four subject sections: list of double and multiple stars; list of variable stars; list of star clusters, nebulae and galaxies; and descriptive notes. For each object the author gives names, celestial coordinates, classification, and full physical description. These, together with a star atlas, will help you find and identify almost every object of interest.
But the joy of the book is the descriptive notes that follow. They cover history, unusual movements or appearance, and currently accepted explanations of such visible phenomena as white dwarfs, novae and super novae, cepheids, mira-type variables, dark nebulae, gaseous nebulae, eclipsing binary stars, the large Magellanic cloud, the evolution of a star cluster, and hundreds of other topics, many of which are difficult to find in one place. Hundreds of charts and other visual aids are included to help in identification. Over 300 photographs capture the objects and are works of beauty that reflect the enthusiasm that star gazers have for their subject.
Robert Burnham, Jr., who was on the staff of the Lowell Observatory, Flagstaff, Arizona, conceived the idea of The Celestial Handbook decades ago, when he began assembling a notebook of all the major facts published about each celestial object. In its former, privately printed edition, this handbook was acclaimed as one of the most helpful books for astronomers on any level.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780486319025
Publisher:	Dover Publications
Publication date:	04/15/2013
Series:	Dover Books on Astronomy , #1
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	656
File size:	65 MB
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BURNHAM'S CELESTIAL HANDBOOK

An Observer's Guide to the Universe Beyond the Solar System

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By ROBERT BURNHAM JR.

Dover Publications, Inc.

Copyright © 1978 Robert Burnham, Jr.
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-486-31902-5

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CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

AMATEUR ASTRONOMY - A PERSONAL VIEW THE IDEA BEHIND THE CELESTIAL HANDBOOK

If astronomy is the oldest of the sciences, surely amateur astronomy may rightfully claim to be the oldest of the scientific hobbies. No one can date that remote epoch when astronomy "began" - we can say only that the fascination of the heavens is as old as man's ability to think; as ancient as his capacity to wonder and to dream. And in company with most of the special enchantments of human life, the unique appeal of astronomy is incommunicable, easily understood through direct experience, but not to be precisely defined or explained. Nor should any explanation be thought necessary. The appeal of astronomy is both intellectual and aesthetic; it combines the thrill of exploration and discovery, the fun of sight-seeing, and the sheer pleasure of firsthand acquaintance with incredibly wonderful and beautiful things. But it also offers the privilege, not to be taken lightly, of adding something to the knowledge and understanding of man.

There is one other factor which I think deserves comment. An amateur, in the true and original meaning of the word, is one who pursues a study or interest for sheer love of the subject; and in this respect the division between professionals and amateurs is indeed indefinite. We are all impelled by the same wonder and curiosity, we are all exploring the same Universe, and we all have the enviable opportunity of contributing something to the store of human knowledge.

Now I should like to phrase one of these considerations in a somewhat less conventional manner, at the risk of being accused of undue whimsicality by the sternly serious minded. Considered as a collector of rare and precious things, the amateur astronomer has a great advantage over amateurs in all other fields, who must usually content them -selves with second and third-rate specimens. For example, only a few of the world's mineralogists could hope to own such a specimen as the Hope diamond, and I have yet to meet the amateur fossil collector who displays a complete tyrannosaurus skeleton in his cabinet. In contrast, the amateur astronomer has access at all times to the original objects of his study; the masterworks of the heavens belong to him as much as to the great observatories of the world. And there is no privilege like that of being allowed to stand in the presence of the original.

THE IDEA BEHIND THE CELESTIAL HANDBOOK

Yet it sometimes happens, perhaps because of the very real aesthetic appeal of astronomy and the almost incomprehensible vastness of the Universe, that the more solidly practical and duller mentalities tend to see the study as an "escape from reality" - surely one of the most thoroughly lop-sided views ever propounded. The knowledge obtained from astronomy has always been, and will continue to be, of the greatest practical value. But, this apart, only the most myopic minds could identify "reality" solely with the doings of man on this planet. Contemporary civilization, whatever its advantages and achievements, is characterized by many features which are, to put it very mildly, disquieting; to turn from this increasingly artificial and strangely alien world is to escape from unreality; to return to the timeless world of the mountains, the sea, the forest, and the stars is to return to sanity and truth.

ABOUT THIS BOOK

There is no lack of astronomical literature today; on the contrary, the flood of new material is so great that the compiler of a good small astronomical library faces a serious task. The chief problem, in fact, is to choose those items which will quickly become dog-eared under continual use, as contrasted to those which will quietly disappear under an accumulation of dust on one's bookshelf. Astronomical literature may be broadly grouped into four classes: popular works for the general reader, textbooks for the student, technical reports and bulletins for the professional worker, and guidebooks for the observer. A book of the first type can perform a valuable service if well and accurately written, though the majority appear to be oriented toward the casual reader who is content to study astronomy from his armchair. Textbooks also deal very sketchily with observational matters, and the more technical publications are suitable only for the advanced worker. The Celestial Handbook belongs in the fourth category, and is being offered in the hope that it will fill a very real gap in astronomical literature for the observer.

It is, briefly, intended to be a standard catalog and detailed descriptive handbook of the many thousands of objects available to observers with telescopes in the 2-inch to 12-inch range. Its realm is the entire Universe beyond our own Solar System, and it deals with those celestial objects which are now popularly known as "deepsky wonders". I can claim no originality for this idea, of course. Other such books have been produced in the past, of which the most complete and successful was T.W.Webb's CELESTIAL OBJECTS FOR COMMON TELESCOPES. This remarkable work, since 1962, has been available in a revised edition from Dover Publications in New York. Nothing else of comparable value has been produced since, to meet the needs of the modern observer.

Aside from the obvious fact that all the older books are now very much out of date, there are a number of other reasons why a complete new Celestial Handbook is needed. To begin with, the earlier observing guides were written for the possessor of the standard telescope of about 1900, the classic 3" refractor. Today's average amateur telescope is a 6" to 12" instrument, and the increasing availability of good quality large reflectors has opened up a vast new world of deep-sky objects for the modern observer.

Secondly, the vast increase of astronomical knowledge has resulted in an enormous shift of interest in the last 50 years. Older books concentrated heavily on such relatively local objects as double stars and the brighter variables. The more spectacular star clusters and nebulae were included, but descriptions were often limited to visual appearances because of the scarcity of facts. Galaxies as such were not mentioned at all, since nothing was known of the true nature of the "spiral nebulae". The situation is now radically different. If nothing else had happened in this century, the final identification of the spirals as external galaxies was sufficient to alter our whole conception of the large-scale features of the Universe. We can now speak with reasonable accuracy not only of the distances, masses, temperatures, etc., of the celestial objects, but through the growth of astrophysics we can analyse some of the physical processes at work and begin to understand what these things mean from the viewpoint of the evolutionary history of the Universe. Surely there has never been any intellectual adventure to equal this, and even the most casual observer is entitled to share something of its wonder.

The existence of the Celestial Handbook is a result of this gradual widening of our horizons, and reflects, I believe, the interests and needs of today's amateur. The book had its beginning about 2 dozen years ago, and started as an attempt to keep facts in order for my own use, to bring together into one place the data from many different sources, to bridge the gap between the elementary beginner's star books and the more technical publications, and to maintain a permanently up-to-date guidebook by constant addition, correction, and revision. In 1958 I joined the Lowell Observatory staff, and the resources of the Lowell library were thus made available, as well as the superb collection of photographic plates made with the 13-inch wide angle camera which discovered Pluto in 1930. In the years between 1958 and 1965 the Handbook more than doubled in size, and eventually grew to occupy four thick looseleaf volumes, totalling nearly 2000 pages.

The work now includes virtually all the objects of interest which appear on the present-day star atlases such as Norton's and the new Skalnate Pleso "Atlas Coeli". But no simple catalog listing can convey much of the real interest and importance of many of the celestial wonders. Detailed descriptions are necessary, and a very simple and direct policy was adopted: if an object was considered worthy of a detailed description, it was given one. Also, a number of objects have been included which are usually regarded as being beyond the range of amateur telescopes, but which appear to me to be of exceptional interest. Such decisions, of course, depend very much upon one's personal interests, and each observer would undoubtedly make a some-what different selection. My own choices are based upon more than thirty years of actual observing with instruments ranging from field glasses up to large observatory reflectors. I think that none of the famous old favorites have been neglected in this book, and I hope that some objects will be introduced to many observers for the first time.

The number of objects listed is well over 7000, of which many hundreds are given additional detailed descriptions. The book is illustrated by more than 250 photographic plates, collected from many different observatories, and a fine selection of the work of some amateur astro-photographers has been included. There are also several hundred finder charts, orbit diagrams, graphs and tables of various types.

Although intended primarily for the serious observer and advanced amateur, there is no absolute reason why this book should not prove useful even to a beginner who is willing and able to learn. Chapters 2 and 3 have been prepared to introduce such a beginner first to the Universe itself, and then to the world of the astronomical observer with its special terminology and symbols. There may be little in these two sections which will be of any real use to the experienced amateur, except possibly to assist in the instruction of the novice. But, after much thought, I have decided to let them stand as they are - if they help only a few of the users of this Handbook, their inclusion will have been justified. And, to shift to the other end of the spectrum of potential users, every attempt has been made to maintain a standard of accuracy which will assure the value of this book as a quick reference even for the professional astronomer.

In such a large compilation the question of errors and discrepancies deserves some mention. Typographical errors and other definite mistakes should be reported to the author so that corrections can be made in any possible future editions. The question of discrepancies between various authorities is not so easily handled, and raises serious problems. If one standard catalogue gives a star a spectral class of KO, another is sure to classify it as G7 and a third will offer K2. The same galaxy may be classed by three different authorities as "irregular?", "late-type spiral" and "elliptical peculiar". Published values for the distances of objects often show very large discrepancies. In addition to these typical uncertainties, there are numerous cases involving errors which were corrected long ago, but which still exist in books that are in wide use today. The galaxy M74, for example, is called a globular star cluster in the NGC listing, while the planetary nebula NGC 6026 is included as a galaxy in the Shapley-Ames catalogue. Similarly, the small galaxy NGC 2283 is marked as a diffuse nebulosity on the Skalnate Pleso Atlas. All such cases which have come to my attention have been corrected in the Handbook, but there must undoubtedly be others which have so far escaped notice. The user of this book should therefore not be distressed to find four-way discrepancies (and worse!) between this book and authors A, B, and C. This is a reflection on the present state of knowledge. Many astronomical facts depend upon very precise and difficult measurements of very tiny quantities, such as the parallax of a star, and there is always a good margin of error. Other astronomical questions remain frankly controversial, and the best authorities differ in their interpretations. It would be a rash astronomer indeed who would claim absolute exactness in such matters as the precise distance of Polaris or the Ring Nebula, the exact size or luminosity of Antares, or the exact orbital period of Zeta Aquarii. And in such enigmatic objects as Epsilon Aurigae, SS Cygni, and 3C273, it is best to admit at once that we do not know exactly what is going on. We have just reached the point where we are beginning to find out what the questions are, and what methods may be used to study the problems. The Universe remains - as it probably always will - an awesome mystery, and Newton's great Ocean of Truth still lies undiscovered before us. But let us make no apology for this. Much of the fascination of astronomy lies in the fact that there are still so many unknowns, so many puzzles and mysteries yet to be solved. May it always be so!

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The Celestial Handbook is a collection of data from a great number of separate sources. No one person could, in a dozen lifetimes, accomplish more than a small fraction of the research which is represented by the information contained in this book. Any compiler of such a work is, of necessity, forced to rely upon the studies and investigations of literally hundreds of other observers, both of the past and present. In nearly thirty years of observing I have actually seen, at one time or another, possibly half of the celestial objects listed herein, and the visual descriptions are largely the results of my own records. Aside from this, my chief task has been the collection, checking, and inter-comparison of data.

The chief source-books of information are listed in the classified bibliography. In addition, the publications of many different observatories were checked each month for the presence of any new information relevant to the project, while both the Astronomical Journal and the Astrophysical Journal were periodically searched in the same way. Information obtained from any of these current sources is identified in this book by the name of the author and the date. The source of each photograph is given in the caption. To all the astronomical research workers of the world, who have made my task so engrossing, so rewarding, and so endless (!) I acknowledge my deep indebtedness. At the same time, it should be evident that the present spectacular rate of increase of astronomical information tends to render my whole project a basic impossibility. No modern astronomical handbook can possibly remain "up-to-date" for even as long as a year; the best of modern measurements, data, theories, and interpretations will be totally superseded within a decade. In preparing the revised manuscript for the Dover edition of this work, the author has taken the opportunity to correct some minor errors and update some of the information. But it should be obvious that a work of this nature could be expanded, corrected, and updated forever! One must call a halt somewhere! "Were I to await perfection," wrote the 13th Century Chinese historian Tai T'ung, "my book would never be finished."

Finally, it is a very great pleasure to acknowledge the primary source of information for this book - the fine astronomical library of Lowell Observatory. To Dr. John S. Hall, the Director, and to Mr. Henry Giclas of the Observatory staff, I must express my deep gratitude for generously allowing the use of the Lowell telescopes and the Observatory plate collection. Without the use of these and other Observatory facilities, the Celestial Handbook could never have reached anything comparable to its present degree of completeness. In addition, many of my astronomical friends, both amateur and professional, have expressed their interest in the project and have offered valuable encouragement, assistance, and advice. It is through their efforts, as well as mine, that the idea behind this book has become a concrete reality.

Flagstaff, Arizona October, 1976

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from BURNHAM'S CELESTIAL HANDBOOK by ROBERT BURNHAM JR.. Copyright © 1978 Robert Burnham, Jr.. Excerpted by permission of Dover Publications, Inc..
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

INTRODUCTORY SECTION
CHAPTER I - INTRODUCTION
Amateur Astronomy - A Personal View
The Idea Behind the Celestial Handbook
CHAPTER 2 - INTRODUCING THE UNIVERSE
A Celestial Survey
The Distance Scale of the Universe
CHAPTER 3 - FUNDAMENTAL KNOWLEDGE FOR THE OBSERVER
"Gaining a "Working Knowledge" of the Heavens. "
The Constellations; Apparent Motions and Seasonal Changes.
The Celestial Sphere. Celestial Coordinates.
Precession.
Directions in the Sky.
Sidereal Time.
Angular Measurement.
The Magnitude System; Apparent and Absolute Magnitudes.
Color Indices.
Star Names and Designations.
Star Atlases.
Stellar Spectral Classes.
"Star Motions; Proper Motion, Radial Velocity. Stellar temperatures. "
The H-R Diagram.
Star Distances. Distance Units.
"Double Stars, Variable Stars. "
Classification of Nebulae and Galaxies.
CHAPTER 4 - HOW TO USE THIS BOOK
The Arrangement of the Celestial Handbook
"Terms, Symbols, and Abbreviations Used. "
THE CELESTIAL HANDBOOK
"CONSTELLATION INDEX, VOLUME I "