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(More customer reviews)In 1987 and 1988, the two-volume Uranometria became the first star atlas to go deep--showing about a quarter of a million stars to magnitude 9.5. It included thousands of deep-sky objects for owners of the large scopes that were coming onto the market. The second edition (2001) goes a bit further--to magnitude 9.75, but its real improvement is elsewhere:
Imagine opening a road atlas to a two-page spread of, say, the State of Montana and finding the eastern and western halves reversed. In place of one state, you have two disjointed halves.
Ridiculous, you say?
Of course. But, believe it or not, that's the way the first edition presented its two-page chart spreads. Also, the page to page seqencing was utterly counterintuitive. The problems come from the sequencing of the charts in order of ascending right ascension (for more details, see my review of the previous edition).
When the second edition of Uranometria came out in 2001, the compilers were wise enough to correct the fault and sequence in descending right ascension. Uranometria is, finally, a practical work for advanced astronomers with large telescopes. The first edition? Don't even take it as a gift.
Uranometria vs the Millennium? You would not go wrong with either one. The paperback Millennium shows four times as many stars to magnitude 11, but some reviewers have commented that it shows fewer deep-sky objects. Whether true or not, the added precision of Millennium is definitely attractive, especially considering the small price difference between the two: $116 vs $100. Let's see if Uranometria answers with a softcover edition.
Uranometria, like Millennium, works nicely in combination with Sky & Telescope's Pocket Sky Atlas. Use the Pocket for quick basic finding and Uranometria for going deep in pursuit of the challenging stuff.
Click Here to see more reviews about: Uranometria 2000.0: Deep Sky Atlas, Vol. 1: The Northern Hemisphere to -6 Degrees
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