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DEEP SKY TOOLS A complement for your favourite deep-sky atlas: 5800 1-degree mini‑maps up to 12.5 magnitude By José Ramón Download the PDF atlas and it's full index in a zip file from CloudyNights here.  Warning, this is a LARGE file, around 10 meg, so it may take a while. Everybody knows that for catching faint deep sky objects, one has to know exactly where to look at. We need a detailed star atlas to succeed, showing very faint stars. Imagine for a moment an atlas reaching the 12.5 magnitude. It would plot millions of stars and would include thousands of charts filling several volumes. Too bulky to carry with us, isn't it? However, what we really need to know in detail is only the neighbourhood of the deep sky object we are looking for. Why charting then with high detail "empty" areas which we are not really interested in? Think in how we do starhopping. First we use our finder, and with the only assistance of our favourite sky atlas (Herald-Bobroff, Sky Atlas 2000) we gradually move to the area. Then we look through the telescope to enlarge the area, look back again to our atlas, and... ops... our atlas does not plot anything of what we can see in the eyepiece field. My root website is [http://www.uv.es/jrtorres/index.html] I like developing mapping software. I started my first project as two MSDOS programs in 1994. It was a nice application, but it is nowadays outdated. It has been superseded by my new mapping software, which is able to plot maps managing 25 million stars and a quarter million deep sky objects. It is freeware. If you want to have a look and perhaps download it, follow this link [http://www.uv.es/jrtorres/index1.html]. There are some other stuff in my Deep Sky Tools webpage [http://www.uv.es/jrtorres/tools.html]. For instance, universal plots for the prediction of visibility for deep sky objects [http://www.uv.es/jrtorres/visibfig.pdf] thoroughly explained in this PDF document [http://www.uv.es/jrtorres/visib.pdf], software for the prediction of visibility, and a master list with the main data for the 11000 best deep sky objects sorted by constellations [http://www.uv.es/jrtorres/constelac.pdf] My old program is obsolete, but it still can be used to make some nice applications. I present here a special deep sky atlas prepared with it. It is a 10 Mb PDF document to be used as a complement of your favourite deep sky atlas. It consists of 120 A4 pages that must be printed at least at 600 dpi, otherwise the resolution will be insufficient to display the bitmaps. It consists of 108 map pages with 54 one‑degree fields to 12.5 magnitude by page. Each mini-map is centred in a particular deep sky object, and shows some information at the top. The 54 fields within any of these pages are gathered in blocks of six maps each: the picture below shows one of these blocks in detail. The charts are sorted by constellation, then by right ascension and if required, by declination. In the last pages of the document you will find also an index that allows an easy location, listing the basic data and  the respective Sky Atlas 2000 and Uranometria 2000 charts. In spite of being draft (unrefined and with some repetitions), I think that the charts are extremely useful for field work. As mentioned, I recommend printing the atlas at 600 dpi with a laser printer and storing the pages in a folder with plastic sheets as you see above. The collection was designed to fill a 60 pages folder (both faces: there are 108 charts with maps and 12 index pages): Download the PDF atlas and it's full index in a zip file from CloudyNights here.  Warning, this is a LARGE file, around 10 meg, so it may take a while. For each object, the index entry indicates first the page number (1-108), then the block number (1-9), and then the location within the block (1-6). The order is 1=1st row 1st column, 2=1st row 2nd column, etc. The index in the PDF document is printed with very small fonts. If you want the index in a text document to elaborate at your will, grab these files: Download the full index from my remote site [http://www.uv.es/jrtorres/LIST_PG1.TXT] Download the short index from my remote site [http://www.uv.es/jrtorres/LIST_PG2.TXT] I have prepared a second atlas with another 5800 objects fainter than these and some galaxy clusters filling a second folder, and also two progressive atlases that do not require the use of a main general atlas since include views similar to Sky Atlas 2000 and Uranometria. I use the mini‑maps with the Herald-Bobroff (C section) to starhop to my target DSO. Then, if I cannot spot the object because it is small, faint, or just too hard for my instrument, I use to the minimaps. It is surprising the number of objects close to the threshold that can be spotted when we know their exact location. The maps are great not only for the telescope, but also for binoculars. I like specially using them with the 25x100. Download the PDF atlas and it's full index in a zip file from CloudyNights here.  Warning, this is a LARGE file, around 10 meg, so it may take a while. Editor's note: Josés minimaps and mapping software are supurb contributions for the amateur community.  CN is very pleased to be able to host/mirror his 5800 1-degree mini-map pdf, and I personally recommend you take a visit to his web site - there are MANY things of interest to be found there.