Is 'Annals of the Deep Sky' the Best Astronomy Book Series?

Another rant.. this time about what's happening in the astronomy book world, particularly with some recent publications going out of print.

Annals of the Deep Sky Book series to buy :

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[glenndawes]

Hi Dylan, this is Glenn Dawes, one of the authors of Astronomy 20XX. Ken, Peter and myself discussed your post. I wanted to thank you for the kind words for our publication. There will be an Astronomy 2025 but it will be our 35th and last yearbook. There are many reasons, besides our age, why we have stopped. There is no doubt the printed word is dying. In fact as the Numbers we sold has dropped the unit cost for producing them in Australia has skyrocketed. With regards to the annals series we love them and were totally blown over when they had an entire volume on the wonderful Magellanic clouds. When we were growing up our main reference was also Burnhams, regards From the Quasar crew

[davidjiannotti]

I was a printer for 27 years. Worked in retail and magazine / catalog. It raised my kids and put them thru college. I had to throw in the towl in 2022. Was hard putting that many years into a trade and having to start a new. Enjoy your channel. Keep up the good work.

[deansongberg]

Alyn Wallace book, photographing the night sky is an absolute encyclopaedia when it comes to nightscapes. Sure it's not for deep space astro but goes into almost everything associated to photographing the night sky.
I'm so grateful to own a copy and that he was able to produce it before his passing. A true legacy.

[barrycraig]

Turn left at Orion. I've always liked that one because now that I'm doing more imaging and EAA, it's nice to see the objects sketched out compared to what I can image.

[Astrogator]

I thought about buying some of the annals a few years ago, but thought that each book only for a few constellations was really expensive. You reminded me of them (Amazon were up to 200 euros 😮). Happily I know of an astronomy shop that has all of them for much less. Now have first 2 and wow!! Can’t wait to get some more. Totally agree paper is best for text books.
Thanks for reminding me

[nightscapejournals]

Well said. Annals is a staggering series - a long overdue updated Burnhams, but turned up to 11. I almost feel the original authors bit off more than they could chew - it’s that good and detailed. I just hope the obsession and passion that kicked it all off has the longevity to get to Vulpecula! I’d never really noticed before, but a lot of the early letters of the alphabet are in the southern hemisphere!!

[andywilliams]

It was so sad to lose Australian sky and telescope. They offered a digital version but I just don’t like it.
A house is not a home without a regular magazine delivery 🤗
My go to bible is ‘imaging the southern sky’ by Stephen Chadwick and Ian cooper. It’s part of the Patrick moore’s practical astronomy series. I believe you can still pick it up for sale online. I know both of these guys and their knowledge is encyclopaedic. Well worth a look 😊

[Ben_Stewart]

Here in Canada the Royal Canadian Astronomy Society publishes a great annual publication.

[sjpp]

Thanks to your video I have acquired some of them. Now there's a lot of Annals in my bookshelf (are you happy? Are you happy? 😂). No, seriously, great books, looking forward to complete the collection, I hope they manage to put out the full collection

[richardpallechio]

The Night Sky Observer's Guide Volumes 1, 2 and 4. I had to order Volume 1 used. These books have been very useful. I also have the Observer's Sky Atlas by Erich Karkoschka, which has also been very useful for me.

[SuperNova-pyec]

This is why I love your channel. Great thumbnail title. I looked up volume one of “annals of deep sky” and this was $184 Australian dollars on UK Amazon. I really enjoy physical books and have signed copies from Brian Cox and Tim Peake. Agree that kindle is kind of useless when compared to physical books. Thanks for sharing.

[naveenravindar]

I can't wait to get my hands on these! I've been using night vision on a large dob and there are just so many galaxies and other objects I can see now. It really is hard finding sources that go in depth for all of these obscure fuzzy things hanging out in the sky.

I'm about to give up on finding good online references. The few astronomy books I do have make it so much easier to find information on objects when I need it. I hope they keep making these

[vladtheimpaler]

Who DOESN"T love Annals?! 😅Good stuff!🖖

[TexasEngineerScotty]

Charles Bracken's "The Deep-sky Imaging Primer" is an all-in-one shop for the information a newbie needs to move from visual to AP. When I was a kid I had my dad's 1950s something printing of the "golden nature guide to the stars". we would lay in the front yard and identify everything we could and watch for meteor showers. In my teen years I would write a letter every year to Celestron to get a new catalog and proceed to just drool over it. At one point I saved enough money for a C8 and if it would have been as easy to buy one back then as it is now I probably would have had several 1980's SCTs and no engineering degree. As it is I went overboard once I got older and now have a 5"SE, C-9.25", Edge HD11" set up for DSO and I break out the Edge HD 14" for Planetary. I blame those

[Mandragara]

The issue with online knowledge is that it is less curated and is often wrong or simply incomplete. As you point out, it can actually take more time finding information online than flipping through a good reference. I wonder what the future will be

[cosmoscarl]

Kind of like eyepieces huh? There are tons of great and useful books out there. The backyard astronomers guide for one. I believe it is in its fifth updated form, though I have the third edition.

[LearnToStargaze]

You mentioned you're putting together a book? I'd love to hear more about this :-) I think for ebooks, the price per MB only kicks in if you price the book over $9.99 USD ($11.99 AUD). I've found that for astronomy books, paperbacks & hardcovers make up 99% of Amazon sales anyway.

[alainmaury]

I can only agree that the number 9 of the annals is the best. Jeff came to my observatory during a week to observe all these objects :). I also have the whole collection so far and intend to continue purchasing the other numbers when they are released. It's a super Burnham Celestial Handbook and of course much more up to date. Other than that I really like the books about the history of astronomy, I recently read "the immortal fire within" about E.E. Barnard, and also "the Glass Universe" by Dava Sobel, both really interesting, and I could not stop reading when I started. Hopefully books do not dissapear in the future.

[marshawilcox]

Thanks, Dylan. I learned about Burnham from you, and now the Annals - just purchased a set; well, all but vol 1- not available. Thanks again!

[tmrdarkstar]

I too refer to my pixinsight book as the bible. Glad I am not the only one. The Astrophotography manual is another great one. I got that the same day I bought my telescope from my local telescope shop. I also found it uploaded to the internet as a PDF years later and have it saved on my drive. I can't go to my local telescope shop without buying gear and my wife cant go without buying several books 😄