Our New Book is Out! Everything You Need to Know to Become an Amateur Astronomer

It seems really surreal to say, but after about a year of work, our book is finally out. It’s called The Universe Today Ultimate Guide to Viewing the Cosmos: Everything You Need to Know to Become an Amateur Astronomer.

It was written by our own David Dickinson, who provides the majority of amateur astronomy news here on Universe Today. David had been writing more and more complex sky guides here on Universe Today over the last few years, and about a year ago, we pitched the idea of a comprehensive book on amateur astronomy to our friends at Page Street Publishing. They were the same group that published books for two other Universe Today writers: Nancy Atkinson and Bob King.

It’s got all the basics you need for amateur astronomy, including advice on learning your way around the night sky, selecting a telescope, doing astrophotography and participating in citizen science and outreach. Topics that we cover all the time here on Universe Today.

But to make it even better, we reached out to dozens of amazing astrophotographers who are part of the astrophotography community over on Instagram. It was really important to me that the photos in the book be examples that regular people can take with reasonable equipment matched with skill, patience and practice. You can learn to take these pictures.

The pictures in this book are stunning, and I’m guessing you’ve never seen any of them anywhere else.

Finally, we were able to steal a few minutes out of Dr. Pamela Gay‘s busy schedule to write us a wonderful forward.

So, if you want to get started in astronomy, or finally dust off that old scope and return to the night skies. We’ve got you covered.

Of course, you can buy a copy of this book wherever, uh, books are sold.

Like: Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or Indiebound.