Visual Astronomy of the Deep Sky (edition 1990)

Here's a title that clearly stands from your run-of-the-mill backyard astronomy book.

To tell the truth, I'm still to put its claims and axioms through their paces on my "8-incher" SCT, but, given the apparent accuracy of the author's own observational data, it is obvious that the proposed techniques are indeed based on numerous hours (spanning for nearly a decade!) of practical, down-to-earth amateur astronomy - instead of complex paradigms sprinkled with scientific formulae.

The author's claims go as far as to challenge old, worn-out formulae such as the maximum observable magnitude for a given aperture and so on. They're based almost exclusively on his empiricism rather than accepting common-place conventions other authors take for granted in their books.

So, for this reason alone, as I mentioned in the beginning, this methodical work does stand out from others.

An, most importantly, it really whets our appetite for observing DSO's we had so far deemed as unobservable and did not bother pointing our scopes at.

If anything, given its price, I'd suggest trying to find it first at your local library - just as I did - and see first if this kind of fairly original approach does for you. ( )