Patrick Moore’s Observers Year 366 Nights of the Universe

Patrick Moore’s Observers Year: 366 Nights of the Universe by Mike Inglis, 3rd Edition published by Springer

The original text of Patrick Moore’s Observers Year: 366 Nights of the Universe was written by Patrick Moore, and the majority of the text has not been touched but the data has been updated. This version of the book contains data from 2015 to 2020.

There is a page for every day of the year in this book. Each month begins with a look at the sky with the initial pages detailing the constellations in the sky, then there is a list of what to look at throughout that month.

Each day of the month gets its own page. You may just find written text for a particular day or a constellation diagram with a list of objects to view in that constellation. On a particular day you may also get a small box detailing Future Points of Interest – something that will happen on that day in the future, like the ‘Earth at Aphelion’ or the Opposition of Pluto’ in a particular year on that day. The number of pages per day is not massive; you may find that there is just one page or less per day. That means it’s not an arduous read, you could just read a page a day.

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There are 3 appendices, a list of the 88 constellations, one with the Greek alphabet and a glossary.

I like the fact that you can pick this book up every day and have a quick read of what you can look at tonight in the night sky, at the same time the book improves your overall astronomical knowledge day by day.

Sorry about the short review of this book, but there’s not much more to say about it.

Where can I buy Patrick Moore’s Observers Year 366 Nights of the Universe book?

You can buy Patrick Moore’s Observers Year 366 Nights of the Universe from Amazon UK

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Patrick Moore Data Book of Astronomy Book Review

This is a very heavy and solid book which includes an enormous amount of detail within its 575 pages. This is the latest edition of Patrick Moore’s book and it’s the first time I have seen an astronomical  book of this type containing so much data.

The data collected in this book is very much up to date and anyone interested in say the facts about the dates of the return of periodic comets with be very happy indeed.

The book begins with data about all of the planets within our Solar System which consumes the first 250 pages or so. The book  then contains information on comets, meteors and meteorites, as well as information on double stars, variable stars, stellar clusters, nebulae, galaxies and finally the constellations and a star catalogue.

At the rear of the book you will find details on observatories around the world, as well as the history of astronomy and a list of well known astronomers, there is also a handy glossary.

You won’t find any colour images in this book, but there are is a smattering of black and white images, such as one of Patrick Moore’s outline Moon maps, constellation drawings and surface details of some satellite worlds  as well as the odd image of asteroids.

Jupiter is covered in 20 pages and no less than 63 satellites are included together with the four Galilean satellites covered in even more detail. The actual work that gone into creating this book is amazing.

It’s nice to see even simple data displayed well such as the list of Solar Eclipses, in this list they date back to 1923 and you can find all of the upcoming solar eclipses up to the year 2039.

I think Patricks Moore’s Data Book of astronomy amazing, but probably not a book for the beginner. This is definitely a book you will keep coming back to time and time again in order to obtain the astronomical information you need for planning an observing session, astronomy training course material or as an educational text.

Patrick Moore’s Data Book is available at Waterstones