In this post, we will see the book Wonders of the Night Sky by F. Zigel.
About the book
This is a book about astronomical observations of the night sky. At an elementary level it tells about unusual stars, star clusters and nebulae. There are stories of how the constellations originated, and the sights of each one arc explained. In short, this is a beginner’s guide to the constellations. It is an observational ’guide so that reading the text should always be accompanied by night-time observations of the starry sky. (From the front jacket.)
About the author
The author, Felix Zigel, is a Candidate of Physico-Mathematical Sciences. He graduated from Moscow University in 1942 and received his Candidate Degree in astronomy in 1948 at the USSR Academy of Sciences.
Since 1943 he has been teaching higher mathematics and astronomy at a number of higher educational institutions. At present he is Associate Professor at the Moscow Aviation Institute.
Since 1948 F. Zigel has written a dozen popular science books and over a hundred essays and articles on astronomy and the exploration of space, including “The Mystery of Mars”, “The Young Astronomer”, “The Mysteries of the Universe”, “The Stars Lead to Infinity”, “Radio Waves from the Cosmos”, and others.
F. Zigel has, over the years, successfully combined teaching and writing with research in the field of astronomy.
The book was translated from the Russian by George Yankovsky and was published by Mir in 1968.
The Internet Archive Links
Link 1 (Cleaned copy, grayscale, bookmarked)
Link 2 (original source from which the cleaned copy above was created, this is partially cleaned with colour images, credits to @ishwar_ashram_trust)
Link 3 Link 4 (not so clean BW copies, credits to the original uploader and guptaji)
CONTENTS
WHY KNOW THE CONSTELLATIONS 7
THE NAMES OF THE CONSTELLATIONS 9
A GENERAL SURVEY OF THE NIGHT SKY 15
HOW TO STUDY THE CONSTELLATIONS 33
WHERE AND WHEN? 49
THE CIRCUMPOLAR CONSTELLATIONS 66
CONSTELLATIONS OF THE AUTUMN SKY 94
CONSTELLATIONS OF THE WINTER SKY 118
CONSTELLATIONS OF THE SPRING SKY 146
CONSTELLATIONS OF THE SUMMER SKY 160
THE NIGHT SKY OF ANTARCTICA 190
THE MILKY WAY AND THE ZODIAC 196
APPENDICES 200
Mir Books 