If you ‘re not familiar with the Ottewell Calendar, this may be a good way to get introduced to it. For those who are not faimiliar with this treasure, it’s a large (11 x 15 inches) paperbook compilation of information about sky events for the coming year.
It has many colorful illustrations of the sky, diagrams of planet, comet, and moon orbits, ellipse paths, and many other intriguing tables and charts. And oh yes, a calendar of events for the year.
It’s about 80 pages thick, and has custom artwork on the front cover. 2009 was a scene at the Leaning Tower of Pisa, with Galileo near the tower, with his telescope.
Now, the problem with all this is the price–Sky and Telescope is selling it for $26.95, with free shipping. Which is a good deal. And another winner is $19.95 through Universal Workshop. I don’t know about you, but I always look to find a better deal. Last year, I found a deal on eBay, for about $15, but couldn’t find one that way this year. But I did stumble across this deal with a book club–$1.99.
I’m not pushing the club, but this seemed too good to be true. It’s the Scientific American Book Club, and you get three books for $1.99 each, with about $14 in shipping charges. That works out to about $6.50 per calendar (I ordered two), plus I got a book on physics–“Physics of the Impossible,” by Michio Kaku.
I do have to order one book at regular price within a year, but they have a great selection, and I don’t think this is going to affect my assessment of this being a good bargain. Check it out and let me know what you think.
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