Mike Lynch's Minnesota StarWatch

by Mike Lynch

Mike Lynch is Minnesota’s most popular amateur astronomer and instructor. He has been leading stargazing classes for more than 30 years as well as writing a weekly astronomy column for the "St. Paul Pioneer Press". In his other life, Mike has been a meteorologist and popular radio personality at WCCO Radio for 23 years. Now with "Mike Lynch’s Minnesota StarWatch" you can easily pick up what thousands of Minnesotans, ages 12 and up, have learned in his popular stargazing classes. You won’t find a more enthusiastic guide to the night sky than Mike Lynch and you won’t find a better guidebook to our night sky than "Mike Lynch’s Minnesota Star Watch".

Genres: Nonfiction

160 pages, Spiral-bound

First published January 1, 2004

Reviews

[Frank Elliott · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent star charts for viewing at Minnesota's latitude. Also has essential charts for viewing the sky month by month. Discusses types of objects the backyard astronomer will find in the sky and has a brief chapter on telescopes. Full of photographs of the skies and illustrations of the what a beginner needs to know for navigating the night sky. Does a very good job of introducing anyone from a beginner through an intermediate astronomy buff to the concepts of astronomy. I especially enjoyed the sturdy ring binding which lets each page come open freely and stay that way. A book we have bought as a companion to this is Terence Dickinson's Nightwatch, 3rd edition revised. It has a much expanded chapter on stargazing equipment.

My wife and I have enjoyed our 5 inch compact reflector. We carry it along with us on long road journeys and we can run the telescope and its guidance system with its 50 foot power cord connected to a car receptacle or use batteries. The scope we've learned to love is a Meade ETX-125 AT (125 mm mirror) with ultra high transmission coatings. (A very compact Maksutov-Cassegrain Reflector with a tube about 12 inches long and 5 inches in diameter.) We bought a nice zoom lens for about $180 for viewing and what a positive change that makes over swapping eyepieces in and out and refocusing. The telescope sits on a very sturdy field tripod. Once it is set up and aligned, it can go to and follow almost any objects an amateur would want to look at in the sky with its computer guidance system. We've enjoyed looking at the Moon, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. The keys are to get it set up to point true north and then get it very level, get the time set correctly, and then to have our precise longitude and latitude. Once the guidance system knows where the scope is and what time it is, it's off to the races. We've got the setup procedure down to about 15 minutes. It took a lot of patience and practice and learning new terminology. Patience is the key.

[Jennifer Ware · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was even better after taking his class.