Canberra · Australia
Firmament Press
Observing guides for the amateur astronomer
Firmament Press is an independent publisher based in Canberra, Australia. It produces practical observing guides for amateur astronomers — books meant to be carried outside, opened under a red torch, and used at the eyepiece rather than admired on a shelf.
The books share a deliberate house style: engraved, archival plates in the tradition of the great celestial atlases, set in a way that stays legible in poor light. Every chart is drawn specifically for the book it appears in.
The Firmament Observer Series
The Lunar Observer’s Guide
A night-by-night tour of the Moon through a full lunation. Twenty-eight chapters, each with its own plate and a set of targets for the naked eye, binoculars and a small telescope.
ISBN TODO · 188 pp · 8.5 × 11 in
The Southern Sky Observer’s Guide
Finding your way under a sky with no pole star, season by season, with the best objects for each — from the Magellanic Clouds and 47 Tucanae to the heart of the Galaxy.
ISBN TODO · 130 pp · 8.5 × 11 in
Companion tools
Each book has a free interactive atlas that draws the same plates for your own location and date. They need no account, install nothing, and work offline once loaded — which matters, because dark skies rarely come with a signal.
The publisher
Firmament Press is the imprint of Craig Anderson, a radio astronomer at the Australian National University and a lifelong amateur observer. The books come out of three decades of nights under the southern sky and a conviction that the best observing guide is one that assumes you are cold, tired, and squinting.
Imprint & contact
- Imprint
- Firmament Press
- Location
- Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia
- Publisher
- Craig Anderson
- ISBN prefix
- TODO — from Thorpe-Bowker
- Enquiries
- contact@firmamentastroco.com
- Rights & permissions
- contact@firmamentastroco.com
Booksellers, libraries and reviewers are welcome to get in touch. Review copies are available on request.