Visual Astronomy Under Dark Skies – A New Approach to Observing Deep Space, Authors: Cooke, Antony The first requirement is truly dark skies if you are observing from a light-polluted environment you need Tony Cookes book, Visual Astronomy in the Suburbs . Given a site with clear, dark night skies everything else follows this book will provide the reader with everything he needs to know about what to observe, and using some of todays state-of-the-art technique and commercial equipment, how to get superb views of faint and distant astronomical objects.