A Short Commentary on Walter Scott Houston’s “Deep Sky Wonders”

Abstract

Between 1946 and 1994, the noted American observer, Walter Scott Houston, wrote the “Deep Sky Wonders” column for Sky & Telescope magazine, entertaining several generations of amateur astronomers across the English-speaking world. His great personal knowledge of the deep sky and enthusiasm to share his experiences were downright infectious. With beautiful prose and just the right amount of technical detail, Houston’s writings presented delightful ‘word pictures’ of the many deep sky objects that adorn the night sky. The present work, first published in 1999 by Sky Publishing Corporation, represents a distillation of his writings which appeared a few short years after his untimely passing in December 1993 (Fig. 33.1).