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Deep-Sky Wonders has been created by adapting the work of Walter Scott Houston from his Sky & Telescope articles over the years.  Unfortunately for us “Scotty” [as he was affectionately known] is no longer with us, the book was edited by Stephen James O’Meara who also works at Sky & Telescope.

Each chapter of the book covers a single month and includes descriptions [in beautiful prose] of a number of objects that, during the month, will be seen particularly well.  At the end of the each chapter is a very handy summary table that makes refering to the objects simplicity.  There is also an excellent Bibliography and Index.

But of course, there is a lot more to this superb book than just the chapters for each month.  “Scotty” really knew his way around the heavens and you will find, within these pages, objects you had not heard of before – I guarantee it.  Even if you consider yourself well-versed in the Heavens, I am sure that in Deep-Sky Wonders you will find new objects to view or photograph.

I would like to relate to you the “gem” I found in this book.   I wanted to image the Deep-Sky object nearest Polaris, and I asked on several astronomy forums “what Deep-Sky object lies nearest to Polaris?”  Now, not many people image near Polaris, so I didn’t get any useful answers back beyond what I already knew.  

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This is the third Stephen James O’Meara book in the Deep-Sky Companion series and it is the biggest and heaviest!

I had this one on pre-order with Amazon for over a year.  Twice the publication date was put back it seems – but the wait was well worth it.  It now sits proudly on my astronomy bookshelf.

With 584 high-quality pages you need to pick up this tome with both hands.  Again we have an Index (thank you Stephen) that was surprisingly absent in “The Messier Objects” and made its first appearance in “The Caldwell Objects”.   It is a similar format to the other two books with a nice Black and White image and a sketch of the object as seen by O’Meara through a small refractor.

This time there is an addition!  We also get a small star map of the region the object is located in for reference – a very useful and a very welcome addition.   Also, once again, the highly informative prose accompanies each object, and I really like the way O’Meara writes, so for me it adds a great deal to the enjoyment of the book.

A number of well-known and expected entries such as the Pac Man nebula, Kemble’s Cascade, and the Flame nebula – but a much larger number of nebulae, star clusters planetary nebulae and galaxies that I’d not heard of before.

None of the 109 “Hidden Treasures” are included in the Messier or Caldwell catalogues of course!  As a deep-sky imager this book has provided me with dozens of new exciting targets.

You simply must buy this book to complete the trilogy.  You can purchase this book from Amazon or any other good book dealer.

This book starts with a foreword by Patrick Moore.  Why a foreword by Patrick Moore?  Because the Caldwell list is Patrick’s list – his full name being Patrick Caldwell-Moore, and he didn’t want to use the Moore (M) for fear of confusing with that other “M” list – the Messier objects.

This is the second contribution of Stephen James O’Meara to the Deep-Sky Companions series of books. 

When you have mastered the Messier catalogue, and it is time to move on to a new list of interesting Deep-Sky objects, the Caldwell catalogue is ready and waiting.  Another 109 fine objects to discover, with a major difference from the Messier catalogue – the Caldwell catalogue lists Southern Hemisphere objects as well. 

So if you live in the U.K., North America or Europe and you want to “bag” all the Caldwell objects, you’ll need to do some travelling. 

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