RASC Calgary Centre - Astronomy Atlas

By: Larry McNish, August 10, 2006
Page last updated January 8, 2013

Converting Astronomy Magazine's "ATLAS of the STARS" to Field Use

Note - a downloadable Index to the ATLAS of the STARS is now available on this page.

	For those looking for a great Star Atlas, Astronomy Magazine has produced the "ATLAS of the STARS" which is available from them or on news stands. The Atlas format is magazine-style and is 100 pages including 24 full-sized double-page maps covering the entire sky. (And at a price of $15.95 Cdn it is also a great buy.)
As with any star atlas, being able to use it "in the field" is very important to amateur astronomers. Unfortunately, most atlases are bound into books (which won't stay open to an important page), or are large loose sheets (which tend to get mixed up or blown away).

Astronomy Magazine's "ATLAS of the STARS" provides an opportunity to solve these problems and produce a great field atlas:

Here are the steps necessary to accomplish this:

take your copy into Staples (or another business printing place)
purchase 50 three-ring plastic page protectors and a three ring binder
first - ask them to use their large paper cutter to chop a tiny bit more than 3/16 inch off the right hand side (the unbound side) of all the pages
then - ask them to chop 3/16 inch off the binding side (i.e. remove the binding)
NOTE - do NOT ask them just to chop off 3/8 of the binding side! you will loose too much of the "inside" portion of each map
the result is 50 loose ~8.5 x 10 7/8 double-sided pages (which are really slippery! but the pages are numbered :-)
insert each page into a plastic protector and into the binder
voila - a colour field atlas consisting of 24 2-page maps that lays flat and protects the maps