DSO guide book recommendation

Could you recommend an intermediate-to-high level DSO book guide? I have been enjoying Philip Harrington's 'Star Watch' for over a year now and would like to go beyond that. I am looking for a guide with less popular deep sky gems, preferably with maps. I am not interested in books that are universal, introductory guides describing observation of Solar System and DSO.
Thanks

O'Meara's Messier and Caldwell objects (in that order) followed by Hartung's Astronomical Objects for Southern Telescopes.

Dmitri

I find myself reaching for the "Night Sky Obsever's Guide" more often than not these days. Helpful finder charts, descriptions of the objects as seen in a variety of telescope apertures, and the editor's 1-5 star ratings to help guide you to the more interesting objects.

The NSOG as others have said is the one to purchase. It does have a few flaws but it is by far the most useful DSO observing guide currently available.

Dave Mitsky

Thank you guys for responding.
I found another one, which was highly rated at Amazon: "Deep-Sky Wonders" by Walter Scott Houston.

Does any of you own it? I am just afraid that a half of this book will describe Messier catalog...

The Night Sky Observer's Guide is my favorite.

Pete

All these NSOG recommendations make me think about intensive versus extensive astronomy. Yes, NSOG lists thousands of objects, but 90% of them are very dim and look about the same unless you have a monster dob. To return to a couple of hundreds of relatively bright objects, hone one's observing skills, re-read logs and see and understand more and more might be much more pleasant than hop through those H400.

To find new objects to observe - NSOG; to see more in the objects you might already have seen - elsewhere. Observing Handbook and Catalogue of Deep-Sky Objects my Luginbuhl and Skiff (containing only three or four pictures) is one of my favourites featuring the intensive approach.

Dmitri

Could you recommend an intermediate-to-high level DSO book guide?

Marcin, I highly recommend 'The Observer's Sky Atlas' by E. Karkoschka. It was recommended to me when I was transitioning from 'Star Watch' and it proved to be the perfect next step. From there I moved on to Uranometria but still keep my Karkoschka handy.

Good luck,
Milt

Others not previously mentioned (unless I missed the post) are the Vehrenberg photo "Atlas's" - such as "Atlas of Deep-Sky Splendors".

And while not really a large advantage over one of the reference companion books to Sky Atlas 2000 or Uranometria, Becvar's "Atlas Coeli Catalog II" (Later printing - "Atlas of the Heavens Catalog II") has quite a bit of information on as wide range of objects.