Both beginning/novice amateur astronomers (at the level of Astronomy and Night Sky magazine readers), as well as more advanced amateur astronomers (level of Sky and Telescope) will find this book invaluable and fascinating.
The book will, in jargon-free blow-by-blow terms, describe how to create the best astronomical images you can with the digital camera equipment at your disposal.
In the last decade, there has been a revolution in observational astronomy, which has meant that we are very close to answering three of the four big 'origin questions', of how the planets, stars, galaxies, and the universe itself were formed.
MARSWALK ONE: First Steps on a New Planet addresses the question of why we should embark on a journey to Mars, documenting what the first human crew will do when they place their feet in the red dust of the planet.
Since the very beginning of astronomy, people have looked up sky and constructed patterns - the constellations - out of the almost random scattering of stars in the night sky.
any popular books upon astronomy have been written during the Mpast few years, but most of them cater either for the casual dabbler who is content to learn from the depths of his armchair or else for the serious amateur who already knows the main facts.
This revolutionary new book is written for practical amateur astronomers who not only want to observe, but want to know the details of exactly what they are looking at.
SCT and Maksutov telescopes - which of course includes the best-selling models from Meade, Celestron, and other important manufacturers - reverse the visual image left for right, giving a "e;mirror image"e;.
Space exploration has developed from early, unmanned space probes through the pioneering years of the 'Manned' Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo missions, to missions that now include women in the crew as a matter of course.
Since the advent of astronomical CCD imaging it has been possible for amateurs to produce images of a quality that was attainable only by universities and professional observatories just a decade ago.
Modern astronomical telescopes, along with other advances in technology, have brought the deep sky - star clusters, nebulae and the galaxies - within reach of amateur astronomers.
In 1967, Lunar Orbiter Mission 4 sent back to Earth a superb series of photographs of the surface of the Moon, despite severe degradation caused by scanning artifacts and the reconstruction processes involved in transmission from lunar orbit.
Astronomy enthusiasts will all appreciate the detailed yet easily-assimilated description of star clusters, how they were formed as our Milky Way galaxy, how they evolved, and how they are classified.
In the last few years, cheap webcams have revolutionized amateur astronomy by providing a very inexpensive alternative to purpose-made astronomical CCD cameras, which use refrigerated imaging chips and are thus extremely expensive.
The exciting discoveries and newest revelations in the field of archeoastronomy present fascinating examples of the importance of astronomy to the ancient Maya Civilization.
Perhaps the most common question that a child asks when he or she sees the night sky from a dark site for the first time is: 'How many stars are there?
This excellent book by Dr Gregory Matloff could be viewed as a large multi- disciplinary compendium of past research, current investigations and future research in astronautics.
In the early part of the eighteenth century, Francesco Bianchini of Verona turned his primitive telescope - a refractor of only a few centimetres aperture but with an enormous focal length of around 20 metres - on the planet Venus.
The history of astronomy is, like most history, a multidimensional story, and when writing about a specific period, the author has to decide how to handle all the developments of earlier times in order to set the scene.
In Small Astronomical Observatories, Patrick Moore has collected descriptions of amateur and small professional observatories currently in use in Europe and America, showing how many astronomers have built their own observatory, often with effective and sometimes extraordinary improvisations to reduce the cost.
Eyes on the Universe is an illustrated history of the telescope, beginning with pre-telescopic observatories and the refractors of Galileo, Lippershey and Digges, and ending with the most modern instruments including - of course - the Hubble Space Telescope.
Seeing Stars is written for astronomers, regardless of the depth of their theoretical knowledge, who are taking their first steps in observational astronomy.
"e;l hope that people all around the world never forget what a wonderful thing it is to lie on your back and look up at the stars"e; Pete Seeger What is the fascination that constellations hold for people?
