Astronomy For All Ages

The Deep Sky: An Introduction

Eclipse!

The Illustrated Timeline of the Universe

The Space Shuttle

Star Ware, 4th edition

Star Watch

Touring the Universe Through Binoculars

When the book TOURING THE UNIVERSE THROUGH BINOCULARS was released in 1990, it received rave reviews, with one saying that it would set the standard in binocular-astronomy books for years to come.  And while other books have come along in the meantime, none paints as complete a picture of the binocular universe as TUB.

But one thing missing in TUB that was mentioned in many of the reviews was a star atlas.  With that in mind, Dean Williams and Phil Harrington introduced the TOURING THE UNIVERSE THROUGH BINOCULARS STAR ATLAS. 

The TOURING THE UNIVERSE THROUGH BINOCULARS STAR ATLAS (TUBA, for short) is the only star atlas designed specifically for use with binoculars.  Conceived by Dean Williams of Cabot, Arkansas, the atlas plots all of the objects listed in the book plus shows stars to 11th magnitude, a reasonable limit for giant binoculars.  (Of course, you can adjust that to show fewer stars, as desired.)  It does NOT show deep-sky objects that require a telescope to be seen, unlike some other so-called binocular star atlases.

TUBA includes:

• All 1,100 deep-sky objects listed in the book are plotted, offering the most complete survey of the binocular sky ever published.  Many of the objects are not shown on any other star atlas currently in print!

• Zoom in and out to recreate the field of view through your binoculars.

• Right click on one of the highlighted objects from the book and up pops a short listing of specifications, including location, magnitude, apparent size, etc.

• Print charts (either color or black-and-white - your choice!) of any part of the sky.

• Hit the print button and you'll get a copy of the chart PLUS...

• A listing of each object that appears plotted within it's borders, perfect for use outside.

• Or select the multiple-chart option to create your own printed star atlas of the entire sky!

• Shows the location of the Sun, Moon, and planets for any date that you choose.

• Includes a help file on selecting binoculars as well as a listing of the twenty finest binocular sights in the sky.

System Requirements

The TOURING THE UNIVERSE THROUGH BINOCULARS ATLAS is designed to run on any IBM-compatible computer using any Windows operating system from Windows 95 through the latest 64-bit Vista.  Minimum requirements are a Pentium-75 with 16 MB of RAM and 5.25 MB of free hard-disk space.  No Mac version is available.

How Do I Order?

You don't.  TUBA was taken off the market in late 2005, and is no longer available for sale.  But due to popular demand, Dean and Phil have decided to turn TUBA into freeware.

Download your copy here (tuba.msi, >6 MB)

Rest assured there is no spyware, malware, or anyware covertly built into TUBA.

After you install it, you may have to set the program to run in "Compatibility Mode.'  To do that, right-click the desktop icon, select "Properties," and then click the "Compatibility" tab.  Select "Run this program in compatibility mode for:" and Select Windows XP (Service Pack 3), as shown below.  Click OK and it should run just fine.