Exhaustive history of the New General Catalogue

by misterdeepsky on December 13, 2010

This is a massive work detailing the hundred year history of visual observing by astronomers in search of star clusters, galaxies and nebulae in the night sky. The author goes into meticulous detail investigating the trail of discovery which began with the Herschels: William, Caroline and John, and continued with the great observers such as the astronomers who worked with Lord Rosse, Dunlop in the southern hemisphere, the great European observers such as d'Arrest, Stephan and Tempel and their American counterparts (Leavenworth, Barnard and Swift). The book is terrifically illustrated with MANY illustrations which I've not seen before. The book does suffer a bit from some examples of twisted syntax and grammar, which I believe is a result of translation of the text from its original German. And there are a number of niggling errors in the text which may not be apparent to the casual reader but will be evident to advanced amateur astronomers. In a work of this complexity, however, it would have been VERY difficult to flag and correct the errors, and they in no way detract from the great value of the book. Mr. Steineicke's command of the subject is evident throughout the book and it is a VERY valuable addition to the historical record. The book is not an easy read and it can be a little dry and academic on occasion but overall, the execution is superb and Mr. Steineicke should be congratulated for being able to pull it off. For amateur astronomers interested in the history of astronomy, this is a must-have.