Useful Star Names

Travel the universe when you open the breathtaking new book Useful Star Names: With Nebulas and other Celestial Features. 



Retired astronomy professor Thomas Wm. Hamilton invites you along as he provides an alphabetical listing of the 88 constellations. Learn the names of the stars, nebulas, and galaxies within each, as well as how to find their location in the sky and their brightness.


Learning the stars is more personal when the stars have names. Professor Hamilton says his students always preferred to learn a star by its name, rather than by its catalog number. “Teegarden’s Star is so much nicer sounding than SO 0255790.5.”


Cover Photograph: Caterpillar Nebula, in the constellation of Carina, photographed by the Hubble Space Telescope, courtesy of the Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD 21218