It was popular as a printed book from 1974 to 2016, used by thousands of sky-lovers in more than 100 countries. It then continued as an electronic book. For 2023 onward it has reappeared, in both forms, printed and electronic.
Printed book: $29.95
Buy the printed book on Amazon
Electronic book: $14. When you order it here, you will receive a link so that you can download the document, which you can save to your computer or other device. In fact there will be several opportunities to download it.
The Astronomical Calendar as a downloadable PDF
The book, both printed and electronic, has 144 pages, and hundreds of illustrations, including charts and 3-D views of space. For each month there are 6 pages, with about 50 events, sky dome, diagram of where the planets are in their orbits, and 20 of the most interesting sky scenes. Then there are several-page sections on the Sun and seasons; the Moon; eclipses; each planet; asteroids; comets; meteor showers. There is a full explanation of the main features, and a glossary of terms.
The 2027 cover picture, Bayeux Comet, shows the comet of 1066, which was taken as an omen in the year of the Norman Conquest and appears in the Bayeux Tapestry. We now know it was one of the visits of Halley’s Comet. Read the story of the cover picture.
The printed book has to be letter-size to allow it to be printed at all, since it can now only be published by print-on-demand, for which this size is the limit.
The printed book is handy for referring from page to page. Coming to a date when there is a meteor shower or an opposition of Jupiter, you can also turn to the full information in the section on the planet or the “Meteors” section. You can compare the globe pictures for the February annular and August total solar eclipses.
An advantage of the electronic book is that you can zoom in to see the illustrations in exquisite detail, magnified to full resolution. Another advantage is that you can search the document to find places where, for instance, “Neptune” or “eclipse season” is mentioned. There is a tip on how best to display the e-book on your device.
“The large Ottewell calendar deserves pride of place… a work of kinematics-made-vivid… a piece of original samizdat… Its author is a gifted artist… To his talented brush, his sense of form in space, and his apt and pithy choice of words, he has added a deft hand at the computer keyboard.” —Philip Morrison in Scientific American
“My husband just cries if he doesn’t find it under the Christmas tree…” —A reader in New Hampshire
“I found enough in the budget to buy 10 for our class. I don’t believe we could make it without them. It’s an amazing amount of information for so little money.” —A professor in California
A sampling of the approximately 400 illustrations
