This book brings the challenge and fun back to a hobby that goes stale far too quickly for many budding amateur astronomers. The book begins with teaching astronomers to use their most important astronomy tool, their eyes. It discusses how to select the right telescope, and subsequent chapters take the readers on a tour of the solar system as they have never viewed it before... through their own eyes. Each chapter includes a series of observing challenges that will entertain and push the reader to continually higher levels of achievement.

T. Plotner, The Night Sky Companion, DOI 10. 1007/978-0-387-79509-6_1, 1 Springer ScienceþBusiness Media, LLC 2009 2 TheNightSkyCompanion Welcome,fellowtravelertothestars!Forthenextyearwewilltakeajourneytogetheracrossthenight sky. In these pages you will find lunar features, planets, meteor showers, single and multiple stars, open and globular clusters, as well as distant galaxies. There will be astronomy history to explore, famous astronomers to meet, and science to learn. You’ll find things here for those who enjoy stargazing with just their eyes, binoculars, or even the largest of telescopes! Although these observing tips are designed with all readers in mind, not everyone lives in the same time zone—or the same hemisphere—and certainly no one has clear skies every night. But no matter where you live, or who you are, it is my hope that somewhere here you find something of interest to keep you looking up! LearningtheNightSky If you are new to astronomy, it might seem difficult to learn all those stars. Relax! It’s much easier than you think. Just like moving to a new city, everything will seem unfamiliar at first, but with a little help from some maps, you’ll soon be finding your way around like a pro. Once you become familiar with the constellations and how they appear to move across the night sky, the rest is easy. If you do not have maps of your own, try visiting your local library or one of many online sites thatcangeneratethem. Theygiveobjectpositionsingreatdetail,andmosthaveakeyofGreekletters to help you understand star hop instructions.

Stargazing is among the most peaceful and inspiring outdoor activities. Night Sky, the award-winning book by Jonathan Poppele, makes it more fun than ever! Take a simple approach to finding 62 constellations by focusing on one constellation at a time, instead of attempting to study dizzying charts. Start with the easy-to-find constellations during each season and work toward the more difficult ones. Better yet, you'll learn how to locate any constellation in relation to the Big Dipper, the North Star and the top of the sky. With two ways to locate each constellation, you'll know where in the sky to look and what to look for! Along the way, you'll be introduced to mythology, facts and tidbits, as well as details about the planets, solar system and more! As an added bonus, the book comes with a red-light flashlight for night reading.

Explore the night sky, identify stars, constellations, and even planets. Stargaze with a telescope, binoculars, or even your naked eye. Allow Dr. Jason Lisle, a research scientist with a masters and PhD in astrophysics, to guide you in examining the beauty of God’s Creation. Lisle designed Stargazer's Guide to the Night Sky for everyone from young students to amateur astronomers. In it you will: Learn the best ways and optimal times to observe planets and stars Discover how to choose the best telescope for you Find 150 stunning, full-color star-charts and other easy to use illustrations for success “How do phases of the moon work? When will the next solar eclipse take place? What is that bright star setting in the west? How do I find Saturn? What sorts of objects can be seen with binoculars?” These questions and many more are easily answered with the helpful tips and basic understanding of astronomy presented in this book. Create or expand the hobby of stargazing; an outdoor, educational hobby to enjoy with friends or family. Regardless of your circumstances and the economy, you will always be able to marvel at the beauty of our night sky.

When the night sky transforms terrestrial landscapes into otherworldly works of art, you need to know the professional techniques for capturing your own nocturnal masterpieces. This complete course combines the classic beauty of landscapes with the vast, exotic universe of astrophotography, using tried-and-tested methods that guarantee stellar results. You'll learn what gear you need and how to make the most of it; clever tricks for squeezing out every drop of image quality from a pitch-black scene; and straightforward post-production workflows to create compelling compositions of the cosmos.

On one level, An Intimate Look at the Night Sky is a unique star guide: twenty-four beautiful star maps, created specifically for this book, cycle through the seasons and across the heavens, revealing what you can see with the naked eye throughout the year on a clear night in the northern hemisphere. Raymo's commentaries amplify the maps, offering intriguing details and tips on identifying stars, planets, and constellations. On another level, Chet Raymo challenges our imagination-to see what is unseeable in the universe, to perceive distance and size and shape that is inconceivable, to appreciate ever more fully our extraordinary place in the cosmos. His elegant essays on the heavens blend science and history, mythology and religion, making clear why he is one of the most insightful and passionate science writers of our time.

Explore the stars with more than 30 fun activities. Focus your telescope and get ready to learn all about the night sky. This book is full of activities that will help you spot different constellations, make paper planets, and launch your own rocket.

This is the first non-technical book on spectroscopy written specifically for practical amateur astronomers. It includes all the science necessary for a qualitative understanding of stellar spectra, but avoids a mathematical treatment which would alienate many of its intended readers. Any amateur astronomer who carries out observational spectroscopy and who wants a non-technical account of the physical processes which determine the intensity and profile morphology of lines in stellar spectra will find this is the only book written specially for them. It is an ideal companion to existing books on observational amateur astronomical spectroscopy.

Science is at a cross-roads. For several decades, the Standard Model of particle physics has managed to fit vast amounts of particle scattering data remarkably well, but many questions remain. During those decades, some sophisticated theoretical hypotheses such as string theory, quantum gravity, and quantum cosmology have been proposed and studied intensively, in an effort to break the log-jam of the Standard Model. None of those hypotheses have succeeded to date. Of greater concern is the increasing tendency by some practitioners in those fields to downplay the empirical principles of science.In response, this book is a restatement of those principles, covering numerous aspects of observation. A particular focus is on contextuality versus realism, the two fundamentally contrasting ideologies that underpin modern physics.

Many lights and other objects in the sky go unrecognised, or at least are little understood by those observing them. Such things range from the commonplace like rainbows and meteors, to the distinctly unusual like the green flash and ball lightning. And there is still a residuum of objects that remain unidentified by the watcher – classed generally as ‘UFOs’, a description which today has connotations of the mysterious, even of extraterrestrial visitors. The first part of this book is an identification guide, very much like the "plant identifier" sections found in a good gardening or botany book. It allows quick (and structured) identification of known aerial phenomena, whether at night or during the day. The objects thus found are referenced to the second part of the book... The second part gives a full description, physical explanation, and where relevant notes on observing and photographing the various phenomena. Some will need optical aids such as binoculars or telescopes, but the main thrust of the book is identification and explanation rather than imaging. The final chapter approaches UFOs from a scientific standpoint, particularly the way in which human perception and often preconception affects the outcome. It does however finish with a short section on "extraterrestrial UFOs", emphasising the burden of proof aspect and touching on the scientific theories of life on other worlds and the improbability of visitors.