At top left, Halley's Comet cruises by the Pleiades in November 1985 as seen through widefield Nikon 9x25's similar to the 10x25's on the previous page. Sure it would have been a better view with bigger glass, but these are what Alvin Goldman and Holly Smith happened to have on hand at a reception in Tucson for a visiting philosopher. I must have introduced 20 people to Halley that night using their tiny glasses. No one is intimidated by pocket binoculars and most people are astonished by what they can see with them under a nighttime sky.

At top right, 7x50's reveal fainter stars among the Pleiades and a hint of the reflection nebulosity that swirls among that nearby cluster. While the drawing at top left represents the view under pretty good suburban skies, this one represents the view under inky, country skies.

As does this one, which shows still fainter stars as seen in my favorite binoculars, the Fujinon 14x70's (from Mount Withington, New Mexico, in fact -- you'll go here in the scraps from Chapter 7).

Binoculars sometimes beat the view in most telescopes: telescopes look right through large open star clusters and into empty space. Under really good skies, the reflection nebula remains as something of a booby prize in the Pleiades, but don't count on seeing even that!

(The drawings are adapted from displays produced by Bill Gray's "Guide" software which uses the Hubble Guide Star Catalog and host of other data catalogs to let computers generate interactive deep-sky atlases.)

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