Charlie in Dayton
23-August-2006, 05:12 AM
There are some nice free software programs out there, and most of them are set so you can print off the needed page and take it with you.
Tony Cecce has developed a year-long tour of the Messier objects (http://www.obspm.fr/messier/xtra/12months/12months.html)
and Utah Skies has a set of Telrad-oriented finder charts that goes with the above tour nicely. (http://www.utahskies.org/deepsky/messier/charts/messierTelradFrameSet.html)
There is a set of star charts in Adobe .pdf format available on Cloudy Nights (http://www.cloudynights.com/item.php?item_id=1052)
The charts are available either in black&white or color. The full set of 20 covers the entire sky.
Toshimi Taki as done an incredible job creating his own personal star charts. See his website. (http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~zs3t-tk/)
You can download the makings for a double-sided planisphere (available in 5-degree intervals for any latitude from 50 North to 50 South):
you can download a handy set of star charts in .pdf format (15 pages overall, with tips on how to arrange them into a handy usable booklet):
and his tour de force, a star atlas with objects down to mag8.5 noted, along with charts to check off what you see in the Messier and Caldwell catalogs,
the RASC's Finest NGC Objects list, the Herschel 400 list, and more. There are over 130 charts, and the overall deep sky object checkoff list comes to 227 pages (!).
If you want some charts that are set just for what you want to look at, the above sets are good places to look.
This post has been printed in a modified form as part of an article in the September 2006 edition of the Miami Valley Astronomical Society newsletter "The Amateur Astronomer"
Tony Cecce has developed a year-long tour of the Messier objects (http://www.obspm.fr/messier/xtra/12months/12months.html)
and Utah Skies has a set of Telrad-oriented finder charts that goes with the above tour nicely. (http://www.utahskies.org/deepsky/messier/charts/messierTelradFrameSet.html)
There is a set of star charts in Adobe .pdf format available on Cloudy Nights (http://www.cloudynights.com/item.php?item_id=1052)
The charts are available either in black&white or color. The full set of 20 covers the entire sky.
Toshimi Taki as done an incredible job creating his own personal star charts. See his website. (http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~zs3t-tk/)
You can download the makings for a double-sided planisphere (available in 5-degree intervals for any latitude from 50 North to 50 South):
you can download a handy set of star charts in .pdf format (15 pages overall, with tips on how to arrange them into a handy usable booklet):
and his tour de force, a star atlas with objects down to mag8.5 noted, along with charts to check off what you see in the Messier and Caldwell catalogs,
the RASC's Finest NGC Objects list, the Herschel 400 list, and more. There are over 130 charts, and the overall deep sky object checkoff list comes to 227 pages (!).
If you want some charts that are set just for what you want to look at, the above sets are good places to look.
This post has been printed in a modified form as part of an article in the September 2006 edition of the Miami Valley Astronomical Society newsletter "The Amateur Astronomer"