Night Sky: Stargazing With The Naked Eye
By Robert Harvey
Published by Amber Books, 14th November 2019

Only one word will describe this book: Wow.

Robert Harvey believes very passionately that looking at the night sky with the naked eye is part of our cultural heritage throughout millennia, no matter where in the world we live.

People have always gazed up at the night sky in awe, reverence and delight at the beauty of the stars and the moon, and it is only in recent generations that people who live in large towns and cities are being deprived of this joy by light pollution.

It is, however, still possible to stargaze with a little planning. Many erroneously believe you need a telescope or pair of binoculars to stargaze, but that is not the case. All of the photos (bar the one of a nebula) have been taken using the author's naked eyes, a digital camera and a tripod, and what a delight the photos are. Stars, the moon, a few of the planets, annular and partial eclipses of the moon, the Milky Way, the Northern Lights are just a few of the things which can be easily observed even by the novice stargazer.

The book is helpfully divided into regions so you can easily see what it is possible to observe in Europe, North America, South America, Australasia, Africa and the Middle/Far East. Many famous and quite a few lesser-known landmarks are included, so the photographs cover places many will have some knowledge of from their own region, which adds to the attraction of the book.

This is definitely a book I will be buying.

Many thanks to the Publisher for making a copy of this available via NetGalley for me to read and review.

Night Sky is a fascinating book full of over 200 colour photographs of the night sky. I received a digital PDF version in exchange for an honest review. The photographs were not as crisp as I would have liked but I believe this is due to the file format; the hard copy will be fine. Despite the image quality in my copy, the photographs are stunning. The book is split into sections for each continent and photographs include both interesting natural landscapes as well as cities. Each photograph is captioned with the setting of the photograph as well as interesting information about the visible stars, constellations, planets and other phenomena. There are also a few tips for those wanting to try night-sky photography for themselves.

I recommend this beautiful book to anyone interested in what to look out for in the night sky, as well as to those with an interest in photography.

Thank you to NetGalley and Amber Books for the opportunity to read and review this title.

This a superb book with some excellent photographs. If this book doesn’t encourage to go outside and look at the night sky nothing will. The book is informative without being to heavy. Some of the digital photographs appeared a little dark. Although this could be vision. I would highly recommend this book if you are interested in the subject..

I always love photographs of the night sky, so when I saw this was available at Netgalley I just had to request it. I live in a light polluted area so don't get to see the full wonder of the sky at night - I might just spot a planet or Orion's belt, but that's about it.

This book allows you to discover the magnificence of the night sky from each of the following continents: Europe, North America, South America, Australasia, Asia, Middle East, Far East and Africa.

There are over 200 photographs of the Milky Way, the moon, comets, meteorites, magellanic clouds, Aurora Borealis and Australis, full and partial eclipses, flyby of the ISS and star trails. Many of the photographs are from remote locations, with a few others taken in places like Paris or the golden Gate bridge, where you expect to see little, but the photographer has managed to capture an excellent image each time.

Each photograph has a description of what is being shown, with it's location and sometimes it has a date such as when a comet or eclipse if pictured. Any particular stars or features of the night sky are explained well next to each photograph. Also included is an Appendices which shows the phases of the moon and six Star Charts. If you wanted to take your own photographs the book explains on one page what camera settings to use on your digital camera.

It's an absolutely fascinating book, one that would look great on any coffee table.

I received this book from Netgalley in return for a honest review.

I'm speechless because the pictures were breath-taking and I couldn't stop looking at them.
I think this must be an amazing coffee table book.
Highly recommended!
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

Beautiful and breath-taking. Stunning, stunning photos that I could just look at for hours along with brief but succinct paragraphs of information relating to the images. There are a lot of books of photographs from around the planet, and they are almost all beautiful, but if you can only buy one, buy this one.

An absolutely incomparable selection of night-time images presenting the night sky in all it's glittery glory