RESOURCES
Sky & Telescope's Pocket Sky Atlas (2006),
Roger W. Sinnott, Sky & Telescope Media, LLC, Cambridge MA I used both the
regular and "jumbo" editions.
Sky & Telescope's Messier Card (2010) ,Sky &
Telescope Media, LLC, Cambridge MA
Nice two sided chart which I had laminated, great field reference.
SEDS Messier Database -
http://www.messier.seds.org/ - A wealth of information, including "A twelve
month tour of the Messier Catalog", list of objects by constellation, and much
more.
Wikipedia Great for concise articles for
each Messier object, along with data for distance from Earth, size and
magnitude.
"Big Fish, Small Tackle" Mathew Wedel, Sky & Telescope
Magazine, April 2016, p. 28 A binocular tour of the Virgo Cluster. Very
handy reference with plenty of tips on navigating this dense cluster of
galaxies.
"Skipping through the Virgo Cluster" Stephen James O'Meara,
Astronomy Magazine, April 2017 p. 58. More tips
on navigating the Virgo Cluster.
Complete Sun and Moon Data for One Day A web service of the US Naval Observatory. Searchable location specific data on sunrise, sunset, moonrise, moonset, moon phase and percent illumination.
Weather Underground ,
Weather.gov (NOAA),
Clear Outside -- Online weather
forecasts. Clear Outside is quickly becoming my favorite, with seven day
forecasts and hour by hour blocks of cloud cover, wind, humidity, general
"seeing" conditions, ISS passovers and much more.
Clear Dark Sky Observing condition
charts for fixed locations. Data includes cloud cover, seeing, transparency,
darkness, wind and more.
Dark Site Finder An
interactive world map of light pollution. With this map you can determine the
light pollution index (Bortle scale) for any location.
Free Map Tools
Interactive world map allows you to determine the elevation of any location.