Reddit reviews The Stars
We found 7 Reddit comments about The Stars. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
The Stars...A new Way to see themBy H. A. REY
Reddit reviews The StarsWe found 7 Reddit comments about The Stars. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
if she is serious, the real astronomers love. best book for adults and kids, by same author as curious george. Guaranteed satisfaction or I'll buy it back from you
https://www.amazon.com/Stars-H-Rey/dp/0547132808
Good question. Maybe someone who knows better can chime in? I'm not even sure how the traditional configurations evolved. They seem to vary a bit from author to author, though they are often similar.
H.A. Rey (of Curious George fame and an avid stargazer) published a book in 1952 called The Stars. It has been very popular and re-edited and reprinted several times. It's still for sell on Amazon. In this book he suggests new configurations which actually suggest modern stick figure representations of the constellations, such as the one mentioned by /u/Other_Mike.
The different configurations use the same bright stars, but people may choose different dimmer stars. H.A. Rey, for example, occasionally chooses some rather dim 5th magnitude stars to make his figure come out the way he wants. He includes some 4th magnitude stars, but not others. But the bright stars (3rd magnitude and brighter) are the same for everyone and people are just connecting them differently.
Most of them do not look much like what they're supposed to be. H.A. Rey came up with alternative versions of the same constellations which look more like what they depict. I had this book as a child and I now see some constellations with the classical shapes, and some with Rey's.
The ones I grew up on may be a little dated at this point, but are still worth a read:
"The Stars" by H A Rey
"Stars and planets" by WS KALS (ISBN: 0-871561671-0)
"How to make a telescope" by Jean Texereau (ISBN:0-943396-04-2)
More on the math side, but still helpful: "celestial navigation step by step" by Warren Norville (ISBN: 0-87742-177-3)
"Field guide to the night sky" by National Audubon Society (ISBN: 0-679-40852-5)
[edit:] and I found the most recent one I bought, "atlas of the universe" by Sir Patrick Moore (ISBN: 1-55297-819-2)
This one was I actually used as a stand-in for the assigned college level astronomy course (mostly for accurate data)
[edit 2:] you may also want to study a little chemistry for a better understanding of the stars themselves
The Stars by H. A. Rey
http://www.amazon.com/Stars-H-Rey/dp/0547132808/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1322713066&sr=8-1
This will help.
http://www.amazon.com/Stars-H-Rey/dp/0547132808/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1324559707&sr=1-1
If you don't have The Stars by H. A. Rey, that's a great place to start.
Yes, it's by the guy who wrote Curious George, but it's a highly used and respected book.