This fully updated 2009 edition features a range of specially commissioned articles by some of the world's top astronomers, an authoritative collection of charts and astronomical data, and a month-by-month guide to events in the coming year: planets, eclipses, comets, meteors, nebulae and phases of the moon.

'A first-rate curtain raiser for a year that offers a stream of astronomical treats' Observer Science Books of the Year

'The sort of book that beggars the reviewer's powers of expression . . . These charts are masterpieces of clarity and detail . . . Indispensable' Astronomy & Space