Many books have been written about practical amateur astronomy which cover the entire field of observational astronomy – the planets, sun and moon, stars, galaxies, comets and so on. The space allocated to planetary observation in such books is thus necessarily limited which is a pity because planetary observation has a special appeal and fascination unique to itself. The keen planetary observer deserves something more than a few brief notes about what to look for on each planet. I believe that there is a need for a book-length work on planetary observation that goes much further than this. In compiling this book, which is an attempt to meet this need, I have striven to remedy some of what I perceive to be deficiencies in the sections devoted to planetary observation in the usual books on general amateur astronomy.

First, I believe that an intelligent planetary observer should have a good background knowledge of the relevant observational aspects of each planet (as opposed to the planet's internal structure and composition, mass, presence of a magnetic field, for example). This can, of course, be obtained from the comprehensive treatises dealing with these matters but I consider that it is better to have the relevant information together with the practical observational aspects under one cover in the observer's handbook, for convenient study and reference.