The Sky is Your Laboratory: Advanced Astronomy Projects for Amateurs by Robert K. Buchheim. Springer Praxis. 2007 For amateurs who have passed the beginner rites of the Messier and Caldwell lists, Buchheims's _Sky_ contains the measured voice of the elder mentor of your astronomy club. Buchheim's _Sky_ is a must buy that will save you in time many times its purchase price. Each _Sky_ observing project is written like an after star-party club coffee meeting, with Buchheim patiently guiding through the practical field problems commonly encountered when starting photometry, double star astrometry or supernovae searching. He includes references to landmark manuals, amateur organizations and internet resources for each topic. Where appropriate, Buchheim fills in with basic observing skills that are often left unexplained as assumed knowlege in other texts, e.g. timing uncertainty reduction of asteriod occultations. _Sky_ now sits on my "ready reference" shelf - sandwiched bewteen other amateur classics - like Berry's _HAIP_, Sidgwick's _Amateur Astronomer's Handbook_, North's _Advanced_ or Meeus's _Algorithms_. If you have been hooked in the hobby for two or three years and want a roadmap to the next 10 years, Buchheim's _Sky_ is what you need. - Kurt P.S. - The projects include: A. Visually counting meteors B. Characterization of minor meteor showers C. Characterizing sporadic meteors A(1) Automated photographic meteor monitoring A(2) Radio meteor observing D. Lunar occultation timing E. Grazing lunar occultations F. Asteriod occultation timing G. Visual observing of variable stars H. CCD Photometry I. Asteriod lightcurves I(1) Primer on translating instrumental magnitudes to the UBVR system J. Extra solar transits K. Asteriod phase curves L. Astrometry M. Separation and position angle of binary stars N. Lunar meteor impacts O. Asteriod hunting P. Comet hunting Q. Nova searching R. Supernova searching S. Being mentally prepared for accidental discoveries T. Other projects 1) Meteor fireball networks 2) Spectroscopy 3) Microfilament measurement of binaries 4) Data mining (e.g. SOHO, SDSS) _______________________________________________ Sent via CSolutions - http://www.csolutions.net