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| Introduction | |
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| Amateur Astronomy Comes of Age | |
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| Naturalists of the Night | |
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| Amateur Astronomy Today | |
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| Getting in Deeper | |
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| Are You Ready? | |
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| Binoculars for the Beginner and the Serious Observer | |
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| Selecting Binoculars | |
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| Exit Pupil | |
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| Field of View | |
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| Eyeglasses and Binoculars | |
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| Binocular Tests | |
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| Recommendations | |
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| Giant Binoculars | |
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| Telescopes for Recreational Astronomy | |
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| A Brief History of Telescopes | |
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| Choosing a Telescope | |
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| The Magnification Scam | |
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| Photographic Fever | |
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| Types of Optics | |
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| Decoding Telescope Specs | |
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| Surveying the Telescope Market | |
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| Signs of a Good Starter Scope | |
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| Do You Need an Equatorial Mount? | |
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| Pros and Cons of Telescope Types | |
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| Do You Need a "Got To" Telescope? | |
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| Picking a Schmidt-Cassegrain | |
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| Recommended Telescopes | |
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| The Used-Scope Lot | |
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| Essential Accessories: Eyepieces and Filters | |
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| Focal Length | |
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| Field of View | |
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| Calculating Power | |
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| Eye Relief | |
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| Coatings | |
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| Wide-Field Eyepieces | |
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| Long-Eye-Relief Eyepieces | |
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| Nagler-Class Eyepieces | |
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| Barlow Lenses | |
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| Eyepiece and Barlow Performance | |
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| Coma Correctors | |
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| Planetary Filters | |
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| Lunar Filters | |
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| Deep Sky or Nebula Filters | |
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| The Backyard Guide 'Accessory Catalog' | |
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| Upgraded Finderscope | |
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| Reflex Sighting Devices | |
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| Cleaning and Tool Kit | |
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| Dew-Remover Coils | |
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| Polar-Alignment Scopes | |
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| Heavy Duty Tripods and Wedges | |
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| Wheeley Bars and Scope Covers | |
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| Collimation Tools | |
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| Digital Setting Circles | |
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| Binocular Viewers | |
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| Focus Motors | |
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| Erect-Image Finders | |
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| Astro-Travel and Touring | |
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| Using Your New Telescope | |
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| Decoding Directions | |
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| The Mount | |
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| The Optical Tube | |
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| The Tripod | |
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| How a Telescope Moves | |
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| Telescope Assembly, a 10-Step Program | |
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| Daytime Adjustments | |
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| Getting Lined Up | |
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| Sharpening the Finder | |
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| Nightime Use | |
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| Doing the Equatorial Tango | |
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| A Change of Latitude | |
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| First-Light Do's and Don'ts | |
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| Top 10 Newbie Questions | |
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| The Naked-Eye Sky | |
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| Phenomena of the Day Sky | |
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| Phenomena of the Sunset Sky | |
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| Phenomena of the Darkening Sky | |
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| Superb Conjuctions 2002-2015 | |
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| Phenomena of the Dark Sky | |
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| Meteors | |
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| Fireballs and Meteorites | |
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| Auroras | |
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| Our Home in the Galaxy | |
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| Recording Your Observations | |
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| Observing Conditions: Your Site and Light Pollution | |
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| The Eroding Sky | |
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| Your Observing Site | |
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| Observing From the City | |
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| Evaluating the Observing Site | |
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| Rating Your Observing Site | |
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| Removing Observing Site | |
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| Conventions at Dark-Sky Sites | |
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| Limiting-Magnitude Factors | |
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| Averted Vision | |
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| The Magnitude Scale | |
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| Observing the Moon, Sun and Comets | |
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| Lunar Observing | |
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| Is There Anything Left to Discover? | |
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| Equipment for Lunar Observing | |
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| Solar Observing | |
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| Solar Viewing by Projection | |
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| Solar Filters for Telescopes | |
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| Comets | |
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| Bright Comets: 1950s to 2002 | |
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| Observing the Planets | |
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| Mercury | |
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| Observing Mercury by Day | |
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| Venus | |
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| Telescopic Appearance | |
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| Mars | |
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| Life on Mars and Percival Lowell | |
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| More on Planetary Filters | |
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| Jupiter | |
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| Jupitor's Four Major Satellites | |
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| Saturn | |
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| Saturn's Satellite Family | |
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| Uranus, Neptune and Pluto | |
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| Exploring the Deep Sky | |
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| The Deep-Sky Zoo | |
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| Messier's Catalog | |
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| Running the Messier Marathon | |
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| The NGC and IC | |
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| Herschel's Catalog | |
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| Beyond NGC | |
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| Deep-Sky Tour One: The Stars | |
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| It's All Greek to Me | |
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| Deep Sky Tour Two: Star Clusters | |
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| Deep Sky Tour Three: Where Stars Are Born | |
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| Asterisms, the Un-Clusters | |
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| Glowing Gas Clouds | |
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| Dark Nebulas: Silhouettes on the Sky | |
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| Deep-Sky Tour Four: Where Stars Die | |
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| Deep-Sky Tour Five: Beyond the Milky Way | |
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| The Local Group | |
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| Galaxy Groups | |
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| Virgo Galaxy Cluster | |
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| Distant Clusters | |
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| Sketching at the Eyepiece | |
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| Southern-Sky Splendors | |
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| Shooting the Sky I: The Stand-Alone Camera | |
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| Twilight Scenes | |
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| Exposure Guidelines: Fixed-Camera Subjects | |
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| Auroras and Sky Glows | |
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| Constellations | |
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| Maximum Exposures to Avoid Trailing | |
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| Buying a Digital Camera | |
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| Star Trails | |
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| What Can Go Wrong? | |
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| Eclipses | |
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| Lunar Eclipses | |
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| Buying a Film Camera | |
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| Solar Eclipses | |
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| Solar Eclipse Exposures | |
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| Shooting the Sky II: Using a Telescope | |
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| Shooting the Solar System: Digital | |
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| Digital Adaptors | |
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| Astrophoto Accessories | |
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| Digital Techniques | |
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| Shooting the Planets | |
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| Video Astronomy | |
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| Astrovid Camera | |
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| Shooting the Moon and Sun: Film | |
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| The Best Films and Exposures | |
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| Exposure Guide for Lunar Photography | |
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| Shooting Eclipses With a Telescope | |
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| Deep-Sky Piggyback Photography | |
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| Film's Last Domain | |
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| Piggyback Gear | |
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| Barn-Door Tracker | |
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| Prime-Focus Deep-Sky Photography | |
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| CCDs or Film? | |
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| Selecting an Astrophoto Telescope | |
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| Auto-Guiders: Guiding Salvation | |
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| What Can Go Wrong: Deep-Sky Guiding | |
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| Shooting the Sky III: The Digital Frontier | |
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| CCD Advantages | |
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| How CCDs Work | |
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| What CCD Cameras Can Do | |
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| What CCD Cameras Can't Do | |
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| Choosing a Camera | |
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| Pixel Count vs. Pixel Size | |
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| Picking Pixels | |
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| A Night With a CCD Camera | |
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| Processing Images | |
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| Is Astrophotography for You? | |
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| Epilogue | |
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| Appendix | |
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| Computer Software for Backyard Astronomers | |
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| Using "Go To" Telescopes | |
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| Further Reading | |
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| Index | |
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| The Authors | |