Book Review: Pearls of the Southern Skies by Dieter Willasch and Auke Slotegraaf

Seven spring-time, 29 summer-time, 16 fall-time, and 19 winter-time entries describe:

• catalog designations, popular nicknames, proper names;
• celestial appearance, coordinates, types;  and
• discovery data.

They earmark associated constellations:

• Antlia, Aquarius, Ara;
• Canis Major, Carina, Centaurus, Cetus, Circinus, Corona Australis, Crux;
• Dorado;
• Eridanus;
• Fornax;
• Grus;
• Hydra;
• Musca;
• Norma;
• Ophiucus;
• Pavo, Puppis;
• Sagittarius, Scorpius, Sculptor, Serpens;
• Tucana; and
• Vela.

Spring therefore finds for:

• galaxies (Black-bottomed or Milkweed Seed NGC 247 12,900,000 light-years away, Caroline’s NGC 253 12,900,000 light-years away, Fornax Dwarf 450,000 light-years away, Sculptor or Southern Pinwheel NGC 300 6,400,000 light-years away, Small Magellanic Cloud NGC 292 190,000 light-years away, String of Pearls NGC 55 6,000,000,000 light-years away); and
• globular clusters (47 Tucanae NGC 104 15,000 light-years away). 

The four-season gallery gives way to six appendices with:

• deep-sky object categories;
• identification charts;
• image details;
• name index; and
• object indices of catalog designations and proper names.

The first-mentioned appendix heads stellar life cycles from hydrogen gas clouds through glowing proto-stars into:

• blue hyper-giants to black holes or neutron stars;
• suns to white dwarves;
• red dwarves to white dwarves; or
• brown dwarves.

Two appendices inform on:

• bright nebulae of background dust clouds or ionized hydrogen plasma;
• bright planetary nebulae of low-mass stars evolving into red giants to red super-giants to white dwarves;
• bright planetary nebulae of high-mass stars evolving into supernova remnants to black holes or neutron stars; and
• dark nebulae of carbon monoxide and hydrogen molecules. 

Two appendices juxtapose images and information on:

• different-aged, different-composed globular clusters 1,000,000,000 to 13,000,000,000 years old; and
• same-aged, same-composed open clusters 1,000,000 to 10,000,000 years old.

A final appendix kindles enthusiasm for space addresses by situating Earth within the Ukrainian doll-type series of:

• gravitation-bound within the Milky Way within the Local Group within the Virgo Cluster; and
• non-gravitation-bound within the Virgo Super-cluster.

So Pearls of the Southern Skies leads readers on culturally enriching, educationally entertaining, galactically enthralling journeys amid the clustered, nebulous, stellar, super-clustered night-time heavens of Earth’s southern hemisphere, thanks to:

• Firefly Books, publisher and translator;
• Internationale Amateursternwarte Hakos Gästefarm (International Amateur Observatory, Hakos Mountain Range Guest Farm), Namibia;
• Auke Slotegraaf, author; and
• Dieter Willasch, photographer. 

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Astronomy defines the Southern sky as the half of the celestial sphere that is south of the celestial Equator.
The Earth's axial tilt is responsible for the celestial Equator's inclination by 23.4° with respect to the ecliptic plane.
axial tilt (or obliquity), rotation axis, plane of orbit, celestial equator and ecliptic; Earth viewed from Sun: Dennis Nilsson, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:AxialTiltObliquity.png

Southern Pinwheel Galaxy, also known as Messier 83, M83, or NGC 5236, is visible with binoculars.
On February 23, 1752, French astronomer Abbé Nicolas Louis de La Caille (December 28, 1713 – March 21, 1762) discovered the barred spiral galaxy at the Cape of Good Hope.
Southern Pinwheel Galaxy, distanced 15 million light years, in Hydra the Sea Serpent constellation; image released Jan. 9, 2014: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA); Acknowledgement William Blair (Johns Hopkins University), Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hubble_view_of_barred_spiral_galaxy_Messier_83.jpg

Milky Way Galaxy and the pōhutukawa (Metrosideros excelsa), also known as New Zealand Christmas tree
Okato, Taranaki, western North Island, New Zealand: Dave Young (dcysurfer / Dave Young), CC BY 2.0, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/dcysurfer/14783345783/

Eta Carinae is surrounded by Homunculus Nebula, a bipolar (bi-lobed) reflection nebula that in turn is embedded with the Eta Carinae nebula.
Image was taken through red and near-ultraviolet filters to capture the dynamic range of central star glaring 100,000 times more brightly than the faint outer ejecta blobs.
Hubble's Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2), September 1995: Nathan Smith (University of California, Berkeley), and NASA, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:EtaCarinae.jpg

Eta Carinae nebula: never visible north of 30°North latitude; visible circumpolar south of 30°South latitude
Namesake blinding star at nebula's center has mass 100 times that of Earth's Sun; the star's infrared light destroys particles of nebular dust, sculpting cavities and leaving pillars of denser material pointing back to the star.
the tortured clouds of Eta Carinae, viewed from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope: NASA/JPL-Caltech, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Tortured_Clouds_of_Eta_Carinae.jpg

Willasch, Dieter; and Slotegraaf, Auke. 2014. Pearls of the Southern Skies: A Journey to Exotic Star Clusters, Nebulae and Galaxies. Translated from the German text Published in 2012 by Oculum-Verlag GmbH. Buffalo, NY, U.S.A.: Firefly Books Inc.; and Richmond Hill, Ontario, Canada: Firefly Books Ltd.