Great Atlas of the Sky sale!

[Dragan]

This is so good I had to steal it from CN...

Apparently, this guy will be discontinuing a great star atlas, the Great Atlas of the Sky. I saw my first one up close at this years NEAF and it lives up to all its claims. Looking briefly at it I'd have to put it on par with my Uranometria or Herald-Bobroff. From reviews I've read online I'm not the only one that feels that way.

But at over 200 bucks I had to pass on it! Well now at a final offering of $99 bucks shipped I just couldn’t pass it up! A definite steal!

Do any members here at DSF use one of these regularly? What's your opinion??

This is something to thing about if you’re looking for a high caliber starchart.

http://www.cloudynights.com/ubbthrea.../o/all/fpart/1

http://www.greatskyatlas.com/

-Dragan

[deepskytraveler]

Thanks for the heads-up Dragan. I ordered one yesterday - like you said it is a steal at $99. Will post my impressions / mini-review once it arrives. To DSF members: if you are thinking about picking up a copy - absolutely don't wait, act now. From the CN thread I get the strong impression these are selling fast.

-Mark

[omahaastro]

Yes, thanks for the heads up. Too bad I don't visit the forum here frequently enough, I would have ordered sooner.

Hopefully they're still available... I ordered one just this evening. I guess I'm assuming if they weren't available, Piotr would have disabled the order functionality.

Now, presuming there's one to ship me... I just have to patiently wait a couple of months.

[Marko]

My copy came just this Friday. It is a monster of a book that you self-assemble into a huge binder.

Don't know how much I will use it over Uranometria as I had been told earlier and have confirmed on it's prints that it seems to always label the galaxies that are not NGC or IC with PGC and that would be my last choice behind UGC, CGCG, MCG when those numbers exist. SteveG pointed this out but sadly I had already bought it.

It does have PA for galaxies and the stars go to around mag 13 I think so that is of value as field finder.

I hope there are not too many errors as luck may have it the very first group I went to to check out was 7331 and they were putting 7336 almost on top of 7335 yet they plot the mag 11.7 star just north of 7336 real position on the money. This was troubling so I looked a little more.

Then to Ngc7320 area only one galaxy shows for 7318A/B which are distinctly resolvable dual cores in most medium to large dobs. Then off to UGC12127 and the two galaxies to the east of UGC12127 are south of it.

This is not boding well ... Maybe it is just that area. Who knows what Virgo/Leo hold?

I'm going to set it aside for special uses perhaps.

[Dragan]

Oh no, really?!? That's not a good sign!

Like I mentioned, I thumbed through it at NEAF and at first glance thought it was very well done and worthy of owning a copy. But I never did thoroughly examine it since the price turned me off and I had no intention of buying it. This sale price of a 100 bucks shipped made me want to order it.

Mine isn't here yet but as soon as it is I'll give it a thorough look over. I sure hope it lives up to my expectations. If nothing else, I'll keep it on the shelf with my collections of atlases.

Now you've got me thinking Mark

[Marko]

I wandered over to Markarian chain area this morning. I saw no misplaced galaxies out of around 30 or so but have not done any in depth study. It may be that I happened to go right to where there were errors in whatever database he used.

It does have the very dim stars and is much deeper than Uranometria and has PA on the galaxy outline as a radius line so it brings something to the table.

Because of it's bulk and the sheets come out of the binder my usage would be take a few sheets (or paper copies of key sections) out to the field and it will have some use so not to worry. It is glossy so I would be tempted to make paper copy of sections I plan on observing so I can make notes on those paper copies in pencil as I don't think pencil will work well on this medium.

I use my Uranometria to circle galaxy groups or obscure dwarf or dim galaxies for example and put a date/site which I find valuable so I go then to my raw ORs that are all in separate text files or I sort my mega-spreadsheet by date and this allows me to see those notes and know I had 'been there'. I'll likely not do that with this atlas. I have also pencil circled groups in Uranometria and no date means I had identified them for future galaxy group targets.

So I will not be 'tossing' Uranometria' anytime soon ...

[Dragan]

Mark,

Just to add on to what you've said. I too have used my Uranometria as a notepad It is by far my most used atlas. (that is when I use it. I tend to use my Megastar with the DSS overlays more than anything nowadays)

Anyway, what I wanted to add was this. Something I've done to my Uranometria that others may find useful is to draw connecting lines between the brightest stars of constellations in it. It takes some time but I have found its extremely useful. The large scale used in Uranometria can be somewhat disorienting at times and I've found that with the lines drawn in, it helps me navigate when I'm star hopping. Just a ruler and pencil is all I used to draw in some constellation outlines between that particular consellations brightest stars.

Make sense?

Just my two cents......

[Marko]

Wow Dragan: We may be psychically connected. I will 100% ditto your past post. All those things are 100% true for what I have done with Uranometria and how I gravitated the last few years to mostly MegaStar/DSS (RealSky).

I do print out paper charts for areas with many galaxies so I can do notes on them (not so possible on MegaStar screen).

Drawing in the 'S&T version' of constellation patterns is one of the very first things I did to assist in orientation.

The 'great atlas', GA if you will, also has no lines and may be not as valuable there as the scale is close to 2:1 where GA is 35mm/deg and UranoMetria is 18mm/deg (eyeball/ruler accuracy). The expanded 'A' charts in UranoMetria are just a tiny touch larger scale than GA by the way.

[Dragan]

Mark,

Did you order your atlas with expedited shipping? If not, what service was used to ship? USPS?

I ordered my copy on the 29th of July and I'm starting to wonder where mine is at.

[Marko]

I ordered it maybe 1-3 days after your July 31 post and it got here Friday Sept 21. It has no postal markings that I can see that indicate USA service used for final delivery and it showed up on my doorstep so I don't know who it came with here in the states. It comes from Poland and had customs type forms on it. It may just take a very long time to get into our individual countries. Have been so busy with summer star parties I had almost forgotten about it. So I suggest you forget about it and then it will come the next day. ;-)

I put all the sheets into the huge binder last night. Put that book on your desk and it commands respect! I may bring it into work to gain a bit of respect there ... Ok I'm joking but I think maybe in the next 2 weeks seems reasonable as a window since it took so long to get here to USA, California.

[omahaastro]

I've actually been unsuccessful in getting any kind of response from Piotr. I hope everything is alright... my Paypal payment cleared <gulp>.

I probably should have contacted him prior to submitting my order.

[Marko]

I also received no feedback and had almost forgotten then 'poof' there it was on my doorstep. I think I also sent an email earlier but got no reply. Things being what they are, I feel he may be overwhelmed and having to print more and so on. He did deliver in my case so I think his communications are lacking but his intent is good.

[Pawel_T]

I know Piotr Brych from several polish forums. He is currently the chief editor of "Astronomia Amatorska" (literally - "amateur astronomy") magazine issued monthly. And he's running a private business, so in overall I bet he's got enough on his plate and it may take a while before he answers your emails.
About the atlas - I had it for few weeks... and sold it. Too heavy, too bulky, too uncomfortable to use in the field. I stick to my old Sky Atlas 2000.0 which I've been using since 1997. There are several moskitos and snails squashed inside, many hand-made notes on all pages. But it's always been my workhorse, probably because I couldn't get Uranometria for very long time and - eventually - I didn't get it at all.
For dimmer objects I prepare and print dedicated maps of course.

[omahaastro]

Thanks for the responses... I'll just wait patiently.

As for the atlas itself, I don't imagine it will ever supplant my Uranometria/laptop based content in the field either... but it looks so impressive and is such a deal I just can't pass it up!

Thanks!
Jeff

[Dragan]

That's how I felt about it Jeff. I liked the look and feel of it not so much for field use but as a reference sitting at my desk. For 99 bucks shipped can you really go wrong?

When did you order yours? I'm now at 9 weeks and still no atlas

[omahaastro]

Dragan, I just ordered mine a relatively short time ago... wasn't even sure they were still available. I finally heard back from Piotr today. He shipped mine out on Sept 22nd... so my wait is JUST beginning. Looking around the web, it seems the time to ship from Poland is typically a couple of months (by ship, I guess it's no surprise it takes so long). I suppose they may sit in customs for a while too.

Jeff

[Dragan]

Just to let you all know I did in fact receive my atlas today. Unfortunately, I'm walking out the door for work so I can't comment too much on it right now.

I can say that it arrived in absolute pristine condition and the packaging was extremely adequate.

I'll look at it more closely over the coming days and report back.

[omahaastro]

Mine showed up yesterday... arrived inside a month's time... not too bad. Everything was in perfect condition.

Did I hear some of you are applying reinforcement rings? I suppose I should do the same... yikes, what a project that's going to be though.

[fnowat]

Hey Guys,

Anybody willing to part ways with their copy? My jump up in aperture has antiquated my star charts & Atlases. Or maybe you know where I can lay my paws on a copy? Thanks...

Franm