Those looking for the perfect gift for the astronomy lover in their life need look no further than the significant weight and celestial imagery of The Stargazer’s Atlas: The Complete Guide to the Night Sky. (will open in a new tab)
Created by a team of National Geographic experts with input from Andrew Fazekas, aka The Night Sky Guy, this gorgeous new coffee table book is not only a utilitarian guide to the sky, but also a treasure trove of 170 detailed maps. historical photographs, images of space missions and stunning maps of the planets and moons of our solar system.
This large 432-page hardcover album weighs 6 pounds (2.7 kg) and is filled with glossy photographs and informative explanations that lure you into the chilly night air to gaze at space in awe.
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A beautiful Nat Geo volume won’t gather dust on a shelf; it will become a treasured reference tool for navigating the night sky and getting to know all the inhabitants of our vast galactic home.
Fazekas has been a star writer for National Geographic for 13 years. Here he combined a prestigious constellation guide for the average layman with a depth that avid astronomers and space lovers of all ages can also enjoy.
“At its core, this is an atlas, and National Geographic reached out to me to help figure out what this book should include,” Fazekas said in an interview with Space.com. “We realized very early on that this is basically a comprehensive overview of humanity’s connection to the night sky, past, present and future, and how complex that connection is. It goes far beyond the traditional atlas. into archaeoastronomy, astrotourism, space missions, and the like. I thought we should dive into the experience that Nat Geo has, and we tapped into these writers who could really dig into some of the other related topics.”
The Stargazer’s Atlas: A Complete Guide to the Night Sky (Image credit: National Geographic)
Fazekas specializes in seeing the limitless beauty of the heavens, so the book is about encouraging people to enjoy being under the stars.
“Any time you’re dealing with topics related to space, science, the universe, or exploration, it can quickly become very overwhelming today,” Fazekas said. “On the Internet, we are inundated with astronomical news like never before. They are everywhere, and this is thanks to the digital age in which we live. a fire hose of information is out there, so it can be intimidating.”
The Stargazer’s Atlas: A Complete Guide to the Night Sky (Image credit: National Geographic)
Fazekas has been a practicing amateur astronomer since childhood, learning from his mentors at the local astronomy club. Now he is watching in real time as astronomical missions send home data such as the stunning first images from the James Webb Space Telescope.
“It’s unbelievable what the average Earthling can have access to, so when we created this book, we wanted to make it digestible bit by bit,” he said. “We wanted the maps to be clear. These are destinations. I think we’re transitioning as a society where people will need to know cosmic and astronomical jargon and jargon. It becomes part of our lives.”
The Stargazer’s Atlas: A Complete Guide to the Night Sky (Image credit: National Geographic)
He sees the possibilities as endless.
“People will live and work in space, and we are seeing the birth of space tourism,” he said. “We are talking about going to the south pole of the moon and opening a shop there before going to Mars. We look at the moons of Jupiter and Saturn as possible places where life could be. False! This book is a guide to help people explore these worlds and see them as more than just dots in the sky.
The night sky is Fazekas’ passion and he loves to share this wonder with people so they can appreciate what’s out there, and this new atlas does the job.
The Stargazer’s Atlas: A Complete Guide to the Night Sky (Image credit: National Geographic)
“We are much bigger than this spaceship we call Earth that floats in the Milky Way,” he said. “When I was younger, going hunting, fishing and hiking with my father, we spent a huge amount of time in remote places where there was no light pollution. He taught me one thing: the night sky is part of nature. the stars up there, this band of the Milky Way and the universe beyond it are also part of the natural world. There is a discrepancy that most people don’t really consider.”
“The Stargazer’s Atlas: The Complete Guide to the Night Sky” National Geographic. (will open in a new tab) not now. Personalized and special copies are available on The Night Sky Guy website. (will open in a new tab).
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