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;

• Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University for superior on-campus and on-line resources.

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.