Astronomical Calendar 2008

This famous atlas-sized annual book is the most widely used and most attractive guide to what will happen in the night sky throughout the year.

Each page is the size of three or four of an ordinary book, allowing large spreads of mixed diagrams and text.

The Astronomical Calendar has been published continuously since 1974, and is now used by about 20,000 (amateurs, telescope-owners, clubs, teachers, planetariums, libraries, enjoyers of the sky) in over 100 countries.

An introduction explains how to use the various components of the book and, if you are a beginner, what to select at first (since there are so many levels of information). For each month there is a large map of the evening sky; facing it, a diary of 40 or so events, many with paragraph-long descriptions.

Other features on the monthly pages are diagrams of where the planets are in their orbits, "Constellation Clues," "Telescopic Tour" (coordinates of selected objects findable in the month), "Observer's Highlights," and sketches of the most striking sky scenes.

Supplementary sections include Highlights of the Year, The Sun, The Moon, Special Moons, Young Moon and Old Moon, Eclipses, Occultations, Conjunctions, each of the planets, Meteors, Asteroids, Comets, Spaceflight, Deep-Sky Profiles, Light Pollution, Glossary, Magnitude and Elongation, Rising and Setting, Quick Reference, and a colored centerfold all-sky map. Some features are contributed by experts Fred Schaaf, Clifford Cunningham, Alastair McBeath, Alan Hale, Joe Rao, and Richard Nugent.

Special events in 2008 include a total eclipse of the Moon visible from the Americas and Europe, a total eclipse of the Sun across the Arctic, Russia, and China, interesting groupings of planets, and comets that may reach naked-eye brightness.

The cover painting for this year is of the oldest astronomical clock still working, set high among the arches of a cathedral.

11 x 15 in., 82 pages, color painting on cover, 2-color illustrations. ISBN 0-934546-52-5.
$24.95

Back issues are reduced to $10 each.
Those available are 1983 and 1986-2006 (2007 unfortunately sold out early).
To order these, please write or phone etc. (see "contact and ordering" at left).

For prints of the cover paintings of some past Astronomical Calendars, see "paintings" at left.

Part of the "strip-diagram" of the Moon through the year

Saturn's rings closing—they will be edge-on in 2009

Our planet at 6 hours Universal Time on January 1
—midnight on the Mississippi, dawn twilight for Europe