I’ve been meaning to do a review of the star atlases and books about star charts I have in my possession. Until I get around to doing that, please read this post by Rod Mollise — “Uncle Rod” — which reviews a number of star atlases he’s seen and used. In terms of field use, he doesn’t have much time for magnitude-six atlases — i.e., those that show stars down to sixth magnitude — because finder scopes are capable of showing much more than that. He also goes into the pros and cons of using a book-based star atlas versus using planetarium software on a laptop when in the field with your telescope.

If nothing else, his post gives me a few more titles to add to my own collection. Hmm.