Secrets of the Night Sky: Most Amazing Things in the Universe You Can See with the Naked Eye, The Paperback – March 27, 1996

SECRETS OF THE NIGHT SKY 1995Bob Berman divides the chapters of "Secrets Of The Night Sky" into 4 sections: winter, spring, summer and autumn. The constellation Orion dominates the winter sky, and Betelgeuse is its most famous star. Betelgeuse sits near the celestial equator and can be seen from almost anywhere in the world. The Orion Nebula (M42) is a stellar nursery, where new stars are forming from gas and dust. Giant blue stars like Rigel die young. Supernovas create elements heavier than iron. The orange star Arcturus dominates our spring sky. The constellation Virgo is the "realm of the galaxies." When we look at the immense Virgo cluster of galaxies, we are looking away from the plane of the Milky Way. Our Local Group is part of the Virgo cluster. The heart of our Milky Way galaxy is best seen in summer in Sagittarius. The Via Galactia confounded many civilizations until Galileo discovered it was the combined glow of billions of distant stars. There are more Perseid meteors after midnight because the spinning earth points in the direction from which they come. Berman refers to the total solar eclipse as nature's greatest spectacle, a phenomenon made possible by the fact that the sun is 400 times larger than the moon but 400 times farther away. The Andromeda Galaxy gets our attention in autumn. This spiral is 2.5 million light years away and home to a trillion stars. The Pleiades rise in the east. The Seven Sisters are another stellar nursery, where young suns are forming.

I really wasn't too impressed with this work with respect to either content or quality of writing. I would recommend this as good introductory material to people who don't pursue stargazing or amateur astronomy at all. But for those of you with at least a good appreciation for the night sky: you've likely read or heard most of this stuff before. It seemed to me like a book version of a Discovery channel TV show about space: diluted for mass consumption, overly dramatic in some parts, containing mostly basic information that enthusiasts of the hobby already know, and in general leaving a lot to be desired.I don't intend to make this review come across as scathingly negative. After all, I did give it three stars. There were a few interesting bits of information, e.g. speculation on the African Dogon tribe's knowledge of Sirius' companion. I was simply expecting more from a book that got great reviews otherwise, and what I read was decidedly "average"!Your money is better spent elsewhere. For the amateur or even very-interested layman, I would recommend Burnham's Celestial Handbook as a near-perfect melding of technical data on celestial objects and wonderfully descriptive notes. That three-volume work is simply a requirement for every stargazer's library.

"Secrets of the Night Sky" shows you the wonders there are all around us, and that go unnoticed most of the time. It depicts things with a sense of awe that arouses curiosity.I bought this book because I thought it would tell me how to locate more things than a "A Walk Through the Heavens", which has maps and tells you how to locate stuff by going from one constellation to the next, and from star to star, and I was a little disappointed. This book seemed at first glance too colloquial, with not enough depth.I have finished it now, and the best thing this book does is to show how a sunset is amazing, that the Red Spot is not red, why the moon looks bigger sometimes, why the moon looks crimson, how some planes tried to shoot down Venus (its very fun). Also, it explains how to recognize satellites, where to look for meteor showers, how to locate Mercury, Venus, Jupiter. It has a lot of basic information, but presented in an awe inspiring way.This is the best companion book for "A Walk Through the Heavens". "A Walk" shows you how to locate stuff; "Secrets", why you should look for it.

This is a great book, written in Mr. Berman's signature style - informative and humorous. Sure, this is now ~ 20 years old, but all of the information still applies. The images / diagrams are wonderful... almost all are unique to this book and are quite informative to better understanding the heavens, from the diagram of the moon's 5-degree orbit around earth and its influence on eclipses to the position of the earth and Jupiter around the sun and how that influences the timing of the rotational speeds of Jupiter's moons. Great insights about black holes, stars (comparisons to our sun), etc. A great read for everyone!

Bob Berman is a knowledgeable astronomer and gifted writer. It he just wrote in his area of expertise, the book would be a contribution to his credit. But Bob gives us his version of the big bang theory and evolution as gospel ala Carl Sagan. Bob joins his predecessors the flat Earth folks and the everything from nothing crowd.Bob needs to spend a lot of time in the human instruction manual, especially Genesis, Job 38 and Romans 1:22. Deniers like Bob can't conceive that the Creator of the universe makes things both new and old.Don't buy this book new!

Berman's "Secrets of the Night Sky" is a welcome addition to my amateur astronomy library. It offers a fluid and engaging narrative for general audiences as well as novice amateur astronomers. While not necessarily as quirky as the late Jack Horkheimer's legendary "Star Hustler" videos, Berman is more substantively rewarding; this book offers naked-eye astronomers a solid foundation.

This book must have been in the basement of a hoarder house. I've had to leave it outside to air out because the stench of mold and filth is so strong that it feels like my lungs are closing every time I try to read it. It's been on the patio since I took it out the package and it's still too strong to try and read. I might try spraying it with Lysol and it that doesn't work, it's going in the garbage.....where it was probably dug out from before it was shipped to me. The condition of the book itself is intact but the stench just ruins the whole purchase. I don't care if it was cheap. It's worthless if I can't read it.

very good

An excellent book!