Guide to the Stars Map – June 1, 2017

Very nice and very useful.. I will enjoy using with my telescope

You know, I have Telescopius, Skye Eye Pro and other apps, but Guide to the stars allows you use of your cell phone and still have an accurate guide to the night skies by month, day and time. The directions are easy to understand and will allow you to learn the night sky. I personally recommend having a knowledgeable fried who speed the process along. It is quite large though, some might say a bit unwieldy, but a great tool nonetheless for the beginner, or even a bit more advanced, astronomy buff. Highly recommend this product.

This review is for the "Guide to the Stars" planispheres. Both have instructions on the front and a legend describing what you see. The ecliptic is explained and spring/summer and late winter tours are suggested.On the back is a tutorial on viewing in general with hints on preserving night vision and locating stars and constellations. There's a chart of meteor showers giving the time of year and constellation for the major ones and explaining what causes them. There are also celestial tidbits listing the 10 brightest stars, explaining star twinkle and more.Some binocular and small telescope objects are listed with hints on how to identify them. The larger planisphere lists more of them. The phases of the moon are explained, plus hints on using your hand to approximate distances.The visible planets are discussed along with suggested telescope power for viewing them.The large Guide to the Stars is huge, 16 inches across, and easy to read. The front includes the Greek letter designations for many stars. The publisher took advantage of the extra size and included more information and larger print than the smaller version.The smaller version of Guide to the Stars is 11 inches across and is also easy to read. It has the same tutorial as the larger one.I had initially bought the The Night Sky 30°-40° (Large; North Latitude) which I found very frustrating to use. Read my review of it for more comments.

Why is 0h RA pointing to the 27th of November? 0h RA is the Vernal Equinox which is the 21st of March when the ecliptic crosses the earth's equator which shows very nicely on the chart. The rest of the chart is wonderful.

I am a planetarium / astronomy educator. When this came, I was pleasantly surprised. Much nicer than I expected. And BIG. So you are not squinting to see it. Total diameter is 16”. Match date ring with time of night ring and you have a “window” of the sky that time and date. Should serve for most latitudes in the US. Portable and easy to use when out with the telescope, binoculars or just star gazing.And a fair price to boot!

My goodness, this thing is big! I mean, I knew it was big from the dimensions given but to actually see it in person is still surprising. It's well made, easy to read and packed full of information. I love the tidbits on the back and the star map itself is informative with prominent galaxies, nebulae and clusters marked inside their respective constellations.I had a hard time deciding between this one and the Chandler Night Sky one. I finally decided on this one because I wanted something that was easy to read. Plus, the fact that you had to flip the Chandler one over to get the southern view was a little off-putting. I know that they created it that way to get rid of the distortion but I thought that distortion wasn't really a big deal. But now that I have the actual planisphere in hand and go outside with it, I can see what people are complaining about. It does make things a little off, but not something you can't mentally compensate for.So in actually, I would give this 4.5 stars. It's still useful and I love how big it is and how much information it has on it. But I'm thinking of getting the Chandler one now too.

This thing is very substantial, sturdy and HUGE! Definitely worth the money! I can’t wait to use it tonight. Shipping super fast. Thanks!

The Star chart is great. My son loves it just now but it’s big though and don’t forget to get a red light to use in the dark so your eyes can adjust.