Philip Bagnall, an amateur astronomer, has previously been published in The Meteorite & Tektite Collector's Handbook (William-Bell, 1991), and in the 1980s and 1990s he was a regular contributor to Astronomy magazine on meteors. but he has also written on a freelance basis for various other science magazines including New Scientist, Focus, Earth, and Science PROBE! He is a former Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society and Fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society, former member of the British Astronomical Association, the Meteoritical Society, and the British Association of Science Writers.

About this book.- Acknowledgments.- Introduction.- Making sense of the data.- The Constellations.- Andromeda to Chamaeleon.- Circinus to Indus.- Lacerta to Pisces.- Piscis Australis to Vulpecula.- Index.

Conventional star atlases are great for locating constellations and individual stars but The Star Atlas Companion goes one step further and describes the physical properties of more than 1,100 stars. With the aid of scale diagrams, the reader can get a real sense of the sizes, shapes, distances, and surface features of many of the stars visible to the naked eye in both the Nothern and Southern Hemispheres. Information on their rotational velocities and periods is given together with their spectral type and luminosity. Binary and multiple star systems are explained in detail. Special mention is made of Barnard's, Kapteyn's, Kepler's, and Van Maanen's Stars and the properties of many open clusters are given. With its emphasis on helping the amateur astronomer gain a better understanding of what they are looking at. The Star Atlas Companion will provide a new dimension to observing the star and is an invaluable supplement to any star atlas.