27 replies to this topic

[Tim2723]

[Submitted by Carol L. and moved here]

Available as a set of .pdf files:

Photographic Moon Book, Alan Chu (E-book)

[Chris Graham]

Did you not have to pay for this?

[Tim2723]

Hi Chris,

No, Alan offers this free of charge. He is, in my mind, a true amateur, that is, one who pursues his interest only for the love of it.

I have only started to download this guide book; it is a massive file. What I have seen so far is very impressive.

[desertstars]

I remember when he first posted on CN to announce the existence of this e-book. It did not receive a big response, to the best of my knowledge. A quick look at the site just now leads me to believe that an updated version of this publication will be available early next year, so I may wait until then to download.

[Chris Graham]

I'll need to download it then

[Tim2723]

Yes, I remember this showing up sometime last year. Carol had saved the link to it. I didn't get a lot of attention at the time, maybe because it takes so long to download. I actually started the download last night and went to bed. This morning I had the main body of it. The price is certainly right though!

[photonovore]

The new version (ver.2.1; 184 pages; over 350 photos, tables and illustrations) is now available here.

I was so impressed by this (incredibly, free) expanded work that I printed and bound a copy for my personal use...today I found out that Chuck Wood did the same thing with the earlier, shorter (95pgs) came out (LPOD; 'An Amateur's Moon').

Take a look at this book and such enthusiasm is no suprise. I have read every well-known guide to the moon and own what are considered to be the best of them and I have to say Chu's "Photographic Moon Book" is the best one of any of them as a general book concerning the features of the Moon as seen from a small telescope. No question, no contest.

The information packed in this book is prodigious and well chosen with the amateur in mind. Chu doesn't get in over his head and does not try to duplicate the more in-depth geological explanations that you find in Wood's book (for example), but instead concentrates on describing the physical features themselves, acccompanied by quite excellent photography on the +-2km resolution scale...perfect for help in at-the-eyepiece identification of features. Lunar geology is by no means ignored, in fact there is quite a bit of geological information in it's pages, however, it simply takes an appropriate back seat to observational information. Many of the faults of other guides--lack of proper index maps at sufficient scale for the smaller scale maps, poorly organized, poor photography, serious innacuracies, radical opinions, etc, are all happily absent in this book.

There are 32 map sections, each of which has a full moon globe reference photo indicating the area the map covers and then several feature labelled photos of decreasing fields of the significant features themselves. All are indexed by feature name/map text mention and there are sections on dome locations as well as a section on rayed craters plus complete information about the photographic equipment, exposures and methods used to produce the photos in the book.

A hard copy is really manditory as this book was obviously meant to be at it's most useful when used scope-side. And it's easy to obtain a hardcopy---even if you don't have your own printer, just put the pdf on a CDrom and take it to any Kinkos and they will print it out at 1200dpi with a laser and professionally spiral bind it for you for about ten dollars. I promise it will be the best ten bux you'll have ever spent on the Moon. What a find.

[LivingNDixie]

I just downloaded myself of the copy. Doesn't look like the 95pg version is available anymore

[Carol L]

Thanks Mardi!
Whew, with my dial-up it'll take till Christmas to download the .pdf.. do you think Kinko's would be able to print out the Word version too? Or maybe it'd be better for me just to email him and get one of the CDs.

[Tim2723]

I still think that's probably the reason this one isn't better known. I have still only seen fragments of it, but they are very impressive.

Hey Mardi or Preston: Does the book describe the moon on a night-to-night basis or is it a series of 'selected area' tours? Sounds like the latter to me.

I'd like to point out for those reading along that Wood's The Modern Moon is really not intended as a true 'guide book', although it has many of those features (as does, for instance, Rukl's atlas).

From Mardi's description of Chu's book it sounds like a copy of it, a copy of Rukl, Wood, and the VMA would get any lunar newcomer started in fine style!

[photonovore]

Tim, yes that trio would cover pretty much all the bases I agree.

As to this books coverage, it's not set up on an equal area/equal treatment basis like an atlas type work, but it does cover the entire near side. There are 788 feature entries(craters, rilles etc), and all are indexed to the various photo maps within the body of the book; identification of minor craters, (lettered) isn't attempted.

No, this isn't a substitute for either an atlas nor a geologic guide like Wood's book; it's simply a basic observer's guidebook to the Moon and it's features. I'm sure the lack of ready availability of a printed edition has a lot to do with it's relative obscurity...no doubt and mores the pity too.

Carol getting a Cd from him would probably be the simplest method, i have no clue how the word document would print out but i'm sure any decent printshop could do it for you. Do call around, printshop prices are like insurance prices, all over the map. A reasonable price is about 8cents per double sided sheet and 3$ for binding.

[SandmanBR]

This book is really great, absolutely incredible it's free!!!
For me, living in Brazil, is hard to access the Rukl and Wood books, specially for the $$ issue, so this is a great way to start. I'm printing and giving this for a lot of friends, to have someone to discuss about the beauty of the moon.
Carol: maybe you can ask for the guys in the print shop to download AND print it for you (being a lady makes a lot of things easier).

[Carol L]

Hi Rodrigo, the print shop I normally use is owned and run by women..
maybe I should send my husband.

Thanks for the price-advice Mardi, I was going to use the print shop in town, but will check around. I'm getting too antsy to wait for the CD though, and will try downloading the .pdf version.
It took 2 days to download Wilhelms' Geologic History of the Moon, but it was done sporadically chapter-by-chapter. Iirc the total download was 140MB with the largest chapter being 40MB. A three-hour download for that particular chapter seems to ring a bell, so as long as nothing else is being done on the computer during the download, Mr. Chu's 84MB .pdf could be mine in less than a day.

[LivingNDixie]

Carol,

DO you remember where you downloaded the Wilhelms Geology History of the Moon I found it maybe a week ago, but like a fool I didn't bookmark it

[LivingNDixie]

This book is really great, absolutely incredible it's free!!!
For me, living in Brazil, is hard to access the Rukl and Wood books, specially for the $$ issue, so this is a great way to start. I'm printing and giving this for a lot of friends, to have someone to discuss about the beauty of the moon.
Carol: maybe you can ask for the guys in the print shop to download AND print it for you (being a lady makes a lot of things easier).

also Carol if you have a libary near ya with a cable or DSL connection you could d/l it there and then take it to Kinkos

[Blues]

I don't know if it's been mentioned already but Alan will send a copy on cd for $3 (which is what I opted to do some months ago). He actually sends you the disk and awaits payment after you receive it. I think it cost about $1 in postage to mail him the $3. Well worth it.

[Carol L]

Carol,

DO you remember where you downloaded the Wilhelms Geology History of the Moon I found it maybe a week ago, but like a fool I didn't bookmark it

Here ya go Preston.. I'm a URL packrat.
The library won't be open till Monday.. in the meantime, I'll see how the .pdf downloads from here.

Hi Elliott, that's pretty nice of him to send it out first and then wait for payment. It's great to see some of us still have faith in the human race. I'd thought about getting the CD but am too impatient.

[LivingNDixie]

I have it on my jumpdrive, I could copy it to a CD for ya and mail it to ya if you would like

[Carol L]

Shoot, I wish I'd have come back in here sooner.
Thanks so much for your generous offer Preston, but I've already sent an email to Mr. Chu.
It was weird.. an hour into the download, the box suddenly flashed "download complete". I scanned the file for viruses and tried to open it to get a peek at what was transferred, but an Adobe error said: "There was an error opening this document. The file is damaged and could not be repaired."

So I sent an email to Mr. Chu requesting the CD.
Thanks again!

[Tim2723]

Hi Carol,

When th time comes, please let us know about the CD's quality etc, and please give us info on how the transaction went (I'm wondering how he accepts payment, for instance, do you need an international M.O.?)

[Blues]

You just send him three one dollar bills (per his request).

(I haven't had the cd printed out (yet) but the quality of the material and photographs is quite good.)

[Carol L]

Thanks Elliott, that sounds simple enough.
The CD's a two thumbs-up, then?

Tim, I haven't received a reply to the email yet, but will touch base here when I do.

[Blues]

[droid]

Well ; after my umpteenth attempt at downloading this, I finally got it to finish complete.
All 180 some pages, I also down loaded all the extra pictures, and the two seperate documents.
Im off to office max this weekend to print the whole thing out.
I am extremely impressed, with the work put into this book.
I have hatfields on an inter library loan, and this is as good or better ,IMHO.

[Carol L]

I never received a reply from Mr. Chu, but all's well that ends well. Preston burned a copy for me and it's on its way as I type. Thanks, Preston!
Geeze, I love CN!