Treasures of the Southern Sky Author:Robert Gendler, Lars Lindberg Christensen and David Malin Publisher: Springer ISBN: 978-1-4614-0627-3 Price: £40.99 (Hb), 190pp
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This large format coffee table book written by the experienced and legendary imagers David Malin and Robert Gendler, along with science writer Lars Lindberg Christensen is an example of what Springer can do if it tries. The book starts with a brief history of astronomy of the Southern Hemisphere as experienced by western Europeans. This section includes the first sightings of the Coal Sack and Southern Cross by the early Spanish and Portuguese explorers along with later data from observatories in Australia and South Africa. There are also brief vignettes on some of the first European southern sky explorers such as Lacaille, James Cook, John Herschel, Edmund Halley and others which gives a perspective on how the southern sky was opened up to scientific study.

The bulk of the book is divided into four sections covering objects that are visible each season in the Southern Hemisphere. ÊThe images illustrating the objects are from a wide variety of sources including the Hubble Space Telescope and some of the large telescopes from Chile and Australia. The quality of the image reproduction along with the quality of paper used is exceptional for a book of this cost. Each object has a short piece on some of the astrophysics and history associated with it. You do find the expected objects such as Eta Carinae and Orion but also included are some more obscure objects such as IC 2220, the Toby Jug Nebula. The images themselves are reproduced mostly full page and the authors have resisted the annoying temptation to spread images over two pages so a large part is missing down the spine of the book. Overall I think this is an excellently produced book and even if you are not thinking of taking an astronomical trip to the Southern Hemisphere it is a book well worth buying just to see what deep sky objects you may be missing. There are still a number of objects covered that will be visible to observers at northern latitudes. I only wish that some of Springers other books were reproduced to such a high standard.

Owen Brazell