604 replies to this topic

[BrentKnight]

Well...I got in contact with Joe Middleton from the Herschel Museum.  Unfortunately, that Herschel book is no longer available.  But he told me a new biography of John Herschel is being published by Cambridge University Press called The Cambridge Companion to John Herschel.  Says it should be available in February.

 

Available for pre-order on Amazon in hardback and paperback.

[bumm]

Well...I got in contact with Joe Middleton from the Herschel Museum.  Unfortunately, that Herschel book is no longer available.  But he told me a new biography of John Herschel is being published by Cambridge University Press called The Cambridge Companion to John Herschel.  Says it should be available in February.

 

Available for pre-order on Amazon in hardback and paperback.

Well, NOW you did it.  You made me order one of these from Amazon at the pre-publication price of $29.99. I like hardcover books, but that thing's 90 dollars.  (ouch)

                                                                                                                                                                 Marty

[BrentKnight]

Well, NOW you did it.  You made me order one of these from Amazon at the pre-publication price of $29.99. I like hardcover books, but that thing's 90 dollars.  (ouch)

                                                                                                                                                                 Marty

Yeah...I don't know why the hardback would be 3X as much.  Still debating which version I want.

[bumm]

Yeah...I don't know why the hardback would be 3X as much.  Still debating which version I want.

If there's much difference in the size of the print, I might regret getting the softcover one...  I guess I'll see.  But geez, ninety bucks for a NEW book...

                                                                                                                                                                                                 Marty

[WillR]

Well...I got in contact with Joe Middleton from the Herschel Museum.  Unfortunately, that Herschel book is no longer available.  But he told me a new biography of John Herschel is being published by Cambridge University Press called The Cambridge Companion to John Herschel.  Says it should be available in February.

 

Available for pre-order on Amazon in hardback and paperback.

I see two editors and no author. What does that mean? I think I'll let you guys be the beta testers. Some of this writing can be so dry ( substitute bad) that it's practically unreadable. Now if it were by Dava Sobel.....

[BrentKnight]

It appears to be a collection of essays from different authors.

[Sky King]

I took a break from buying books and actually got busy reading some of the backlog. I had started several but one night one book called to me off the shelf (figuratively):

 

The Immortal Fire Within by Sheehan.

 

I walked through the first 70 pages and I can see what all the fuss is about. Well written and documented, sad at parts and glorious elsewhere, it tells the story of E.E. Barnard's life. It is the inspiring story of one man's struggle, what it was like in the mid 1800's, what astronomy was like back then and the potential of an individual not satisfied with second best.

 

Einstein said that if anyone spends 15 minutes a day learning something new, in a year, he (or she) will be an expert; in 5 years, a national expert.

Clearly you could see this happening with E.E. Barnard, who put in considerable efforts.

 

Thomas Edison's said: “Genius is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration.”

They said E.E. Barnard never slept. (Maybe on the full Moons and Cloudy Nights?)

 

Clear Skies!

Edited by Sky King, 27 February 2024 - 06:14 PM.

[Physicsman]

I took a break from buying books and actually got busy reading some of the backlog. I had started several but one night one book called to me off the shelf (figuratively):

 

The Immortal Fire Within by Sheehan.

 

I walked through the first 70 pages and I can see what all the fuss is about. Well written and documented, sad at parts and glorious elsewhere, it tells the story of E.E. Barnard's life. It is the inspiring story of one man's struggle, what it was like in the mid 1800's, what astronomy was like back then and the potential of an individual not satisfied with second best.

 

Einstein said that if anyone spends 15 minutes a day learning something new, in a year, he (or she) will be an expert; in 5 years, a national expert.

Clearly you could see this happening with E.E. Barnard, who put in considerable efforts.

 

Thomas Edison's said: “Genius is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration.”

They said E.E. Barnard never slept. (Maybe on the full Moons and Cloudy Nights?)

 

Clear Skies!

 

I'm a bit of a William Sheehan fan, so probably biased, but I got a copy of The Immortal Fire Within last year and thoroughly enjoyed reading it.

 

Not necessarily an easy read because of the comprehensive, scholarly nature of the book. But you can't help but admire Barnard, especially given the circumstances he was brought up in. His work ethic was incredible and heaven knows how few hours he slept every day!

 

To those considering the book - get a copy!

[yuzameh]

Well...I got in contact with Joe Middleton from the Herschel Museum.  Unfortunately, that Herschel book is no longer available.  But he told me a new biography of John Herschel is being published by Cambridge University Press called The Cambridge Companion to John Herschel.  Says it should be available in February.

 

Available for pre-order on Amazon in hardback and paperback.

If you like this sort of stuff then there's a similar tome just come out from OUP (Oxford University Press which didn't do much astronomy stuff but did use to pop out some chewy astrophysics and solar books once upon a time) on James Bradley who was Halley's successor as AR (thus the third such).

 

I know no more than this, I had just noticed it on some websearches from time to time, of which the best will likely be this

 

https://academic.oup.com/book/55341

[BrentKnight]

If you like this sort of stuff then there's a similar tome just come out from OUP (Oxford University Press which didn't do much astronomy stuff but did use to pop out some chewy astrophysics and solar books once upon a time) on James Bradley who was Halley's successor as AR (thus the third such).

 

I know no more than this, I had just noticed it on some websearches from time to time, of which the best will likely be this

 

https://academic.oup.com/book/55341

I'm currently working my way through three heavy lifts... Observing by Hand, Victorian Popularizers of Science and The Bookseller of Florence.  I drive 2 hours each day to and from work and I listen to audiobooks (currently have Jay Kristoff's Godsgrave playing).  I would need another lifetime to read all the books I currently have - and I probably still have another 20 years or so to keep collecting.  I love the futility of trying to keep up with all the interesting books out there.

[WillR]

Just finished reading American Eclipse by David Baron, appropriate as this year’s American eclipse draws near. What a great book, beautifully crafted and researched, a real page turner.

 

I follows a number of leading American astronomers and one very prominent non- astronomer leading up to and through the total eclipse of 1878. They all traveled to Wyoming and Colorado from the east coast to get into the path of totality.

 

Among them were Henry Draper, who was an early pioneer in photographic spectroscopy; Maria Mitchell, an astronomy professor at the very new Vassar College and an advocate for women’s rights; James Craig Watson, who was searching for the elusive planet Vulcan; and Cleveland Abbe, the first meteorologist for the newly minted National Weather Service, under the auspices of the Army Signal Core.

 

The prominent non-scientist was the already famous 31 year old Thomas Edison, who brought his recent invention, the tasimeter, to measure the heat from the corona. ( This invention never became a workable instrument due to the difficulty of calibrating it to a scale. Edison claimed it could measure differences in temperature down to a millionth of a degree Fahrenheit. It did indeed find heat in the corona, but the needle simple went to the end of the scale, providing no meaningful data.)

 

This eclipse is credited with beginning the ascent of American science into the forefront of the world scientific community by the 20th century. I highly recommend this book.

[BrentKnight]

Thanks for the review Will.  I know I grabbed this one a couple years ago (it's on my TBR list), but I just checked and its still on the shelf and so I won't be grabbing another one by accident.

[BillShort]

Thanks  WillR  Sounds like a great book,  I just ordered it,     Best wishes   Bill Short

[WillR]

I just finished another great read that I can recommend. It is The Book Nobody Read by the late Owen Gingerich.

 

In 1970, Gingerich came across a first edition of the seminal text, De revolutionibus by Nicolaus Copernicus, the book that first proposed a heliocentric solar system and the book that got Galileo in hot water 80 years later. This copy, in the collection of the The Royal Observatory in Edinburgh, was heavily annotated. In 1959, Arthur Koestler wrote The Sleepwalkers, in which be branded De revolutionibus "the book that nobody read". But clearly this copy had been read.

 

Stumbling on this copy got Gingerich, the research professor of astronomy at Harvard, wondering if in fact the book had been extensively read and started him on a 30 year quest to track down every extant first and second edition of De revolutionibus, eventually publishing his Annotated Census of Copernicus' De revolutionibus in 2002. On the way he became the leading authority in the world on these editions, in demand by auction houses, rare book sellers, and even the FBI and Interpol.

 

The Book Nobody Read is his memoir of this journey that took him all over the world, to all of Europe, behind the iron curtain to Poland and Russia, Africa, China, anywhere he could examine a copy first hand. He took copious notes and photos, and he became a handwriting expert as he identified copies that belonged to Kepler, Rheticus, Reinhold, Wittich, Brahe, and Galileo among others, as he established the provenance of the books he examined by the annotations in their margins. 

 

As the book jacket reads "Part autobiography, part scientific exploration, part bibliographic detective story, The Book Nobody Read recolors the history of cosmology and offers new appreciation of the enduring power of an extraordinary book and its ideas"

 

 

[Physicsman]

Thanks for the review, Will.

 

I have a paperback copy of the book lurking in the bottom of my Amazon basket, put there a good while back when this volume was previously mentioned.

 

You've convinced me to "proceed to checkout"!

[WillR]

Thanks for the review, Will.

 

I have a paperback copy of the book lurking in the bottom of my Amazon basket, put there a good while back when this volume was previously mentioned.

 

You've convinced me to "proceed to checkout"!

My work is finished here. 

 

I think I owed you at least one, with all the books you guys have enticed me to buy. I actually found the last two at my local library, which was a nice surprise.

[scottinash]

I have been cleaning out the storage area in my basement and discovered a long forgotten bin with some things from my younger years.  I found three very special books that I revered as a teenager. Specifically, the amazing Peterson Field Guide Series "Field Guide to the Stars and Planets" by Donald Menzel of the Harvard College Observatory.  This copy was published in 1964 and in my opinion leaps ahead of its time.   The star charts, Deep Sky images, Lunar photo's with labels, etc are top quality.  Even though I used this book heavily outside with a dim flashlight and 7x50 Tasco binoculars throughout the 60's and 70's, it has surprisingly remained in pristine condition with only a few bumps around the edges. 

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Edited by scottinash, 01 July 2024 - 01:58 PM.

[scottinash]

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[BrentKnight]

I wonder just how many long-forgotten bins are out there filled with wonderful old books.  I hope they all get found one day...

[Alex_V]

I just love those black and white honest pictures.

[yuzameh]

I have been cleaning out the storage area in my basement and discovered a long forgotten bin with some things from my younger years.  I found three very special books that I revered as a teenager. Specifically, the amazing Peterson Field Guide Series "Field Guide to the Stars and Planets" by Donald Menzel of the Harvard College Observatory.  This copy was published in 1964 and in my opinion leaps ahead of its time.   The star charts, Deep Sky images, Lunar photo's with labels, etc are top quality.  Even though I used this book heavily outside with a dim flashlight and 7x50 Tasco binoculars throughout the 60's and 70's, it has surprisingly remained in pristine condition with only a few bumps around the edges. 

Made me get off me backside and look at my copy (when I was a teenager I still signed and dated the flyleaf of me book purchases, as I didn't know any better) to find that end of this year my third edition/print copy of the original will have bought half a century ago.

 

It learnted me all I ever knew, and still do to some extent (ie the vast majority) of where to observe.  It taught me the constellations that I didn't know, the bits and pieces of big ones and the obscure ones, its excellent use of plate negatives for star charts with symbols over stuff was amazing, and uniquely well done to this day!!!  Dropped in the subsequent editions done by his Paschachov(?spelling?), they worked, and didn't leave you with the missing star issue of most printed star charts due to an incomplete 8 mag limit at best (which itself was quite deep for those days, I believe uranometria only went to 9 for instance decades afterwards).

 

Didn't use the Moon maps much, tend to just look at the Moon, if I do at all, and enjoy the view, without caring much about what's what or names etc.

 

In those early days a very, very essential thing was the simple little printed orrery type thing it had on one page.  It had concentric circles for the planets and with a little bit of arithmetic and a straight edge you could predict where the planets were.  Nowadays, and even then, you just look at the sky and recognise them from both experience and constellation/star familiarity, whether you knew they were there or not.  In those days though, if you wanted to know when planet season was (or what planets would be around in a couple of months or longer away) this simple little diagrm, filling less than a full small page, with summary details on how to use it, was the only way short of nipping down the town centre library, dragging out the astronomical almanac in the reference section, writing down some co-ords, ra and dec, and dates, and going back and looking those up on your star charts (even then you'd have to have some familiarity as to what constellations were around in which seasons).

 

A unique book, never bettered in even later editions, and nothing even remotely like it since.

 

I still use the map in it for Mars, it gives the most honest view of what you can see in a medium sized scope than any other book.

[scottinash]

pages from the 1964 edition (7th printing) Field Guide to the Stars and Planets

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Edited by scottinash, 06 July 2024 - 07:41 PM.

[Physicsman]

Some of the posts on this page have been very evocative, bringing back memories of when astronomy - especially with my 60mm refractor - was a seemingly much simpler pastime than it is today.

 

Excellent, to the point, charts giving a good impression of some of the smears you might be able to see. And Moon imagery (sometimes sneered at today) that was more than adequate for most observers.

 

Great books, whether Menzel, Nicolson, Rey, Moore etc. 

 

Thanks to those who've posted-up this stuff.

[edwardtone]

Does anyone have experience with this series: https://www.overdriv...sing-binoscopes ? Patrick Moore seems to write about two hands full of interesting topics. I prefer tangible books, but maybe a source of useful reference? I like that it's available from Overdrive. Increases my chances of reading it if my rural library has a subscription.

[Sky King]

 

Too many books, too little time. Finishing "Black Holes and Time Warps" and "Cosmic Code," but it helps to take a break from the heavy stuff and start a third book, which will move up as the others are finished.

 

I have read none of Jeff Kanipe's Annals of the Deep Sky, so I started with Volume 10, Draco, Equuleus, Eridanus, and Fornex. From the Introduction, "...we endeavor to depict these objects in all their astonishing detail, so they will appear more real to the readers than a smoke-and-mirrors illusion from a magic latern."

 

First an excellent description of Draco, then a detailed run-down on it's major stars. Everything is very readable and detailed. These are perfect for a Cloudy Night as there's everything included but the telescope. I can see why people like this series. I imaged Eltanin, Gamma (y) Draconis a while ago and saw it again with new eyes after reading about it in the Annals (p. 13).