Ninety-nine years have passed since the landmark publication of Edward Emerson Barnard’s historic atlas of dark nebulae, Atlas of Selected Regions of the Milky Way. Barnard essentially invented the study of these dark clouds in the sky, and original copies of his atlas are highly sought after and very valuable. Fortunately for observers and astroimagers, the Barnard atlas was reprinted by Cambridge University Press in 2011, making it widely available and far more affordable than an original copy. (The original copy, however, famously includes actual photographic prints that were produced and pasted in by Barnard himself.)
Now a new and valuable supplement has entered the fray. The Barnard Album, by a trio of well-known astronomy enthusiasts, provides a fine and much-needed supplement to the original Barnard work. The new work is a volume in the extensive “Patrick Moore Practical Astronomy Series.” It presents a small-scale representation of the Barnard plates along with color versions of interesting areas from the plates produced by coauthor Tim Hunter.
This is a highly valuable supplement to anyone interested in observing or photographing dark nebulae. Although the scale is reduced — the original plates are reproduced typically at a scale of about 5 inches square, as opposed to the original reproductions of more than 8 inches square, they are reproduced well and hold most of the original detail. The accompanying color photos add a great deal to enjoying and understanding the fields the dark nebulae exist within. The new book’s paper is also uncoated and relatively thin, which is an artifact, I think, of the difficult economics of specialty book publishing in this day and age.
All that said, the book is a very important addition to the literature on dark nebulae. Readers now get to tour Barnard’s world of cosmic clouds with colorful and annotated companions to the original black and whites, which adds a great deal to the knowledge of modern Astro enthusiasts. The informative text adds a great deal to the knowledge base of what we now know about these clouds of tiny grains, and will inspire and inform modern-day observers and imagers.
Nearly a century after Barnard’s landmark work was published, the literature on dark nebulae — an important component of galaxies! — is still awfully thin. This extremely helpful and illuminating work will add a great deal to the libraries of amateur astronomers who observe, photograph, and wonder about these distant, dark clouds inhabiting parts of our Milky Way Galaxy.
