The Complete Idiot's Guide to Astronomy

by Christopher G. De Pree, Alan Axelrod

Look to the stars.

Although Astronomy has been around for more than 5,500 years, astronomers say that we've learned more than 90% of what we know about the universe in just the last 50-and much of that in the last decade! The Complete Idiot's Guide(r) to Astronomy, Fourth Edition, continues to be the most comprehensive introduction to the topic, covering all the latest advances and discoveries, including:
• The demotion of Pluto and promotion of Ceres as planetary objects
• Breakthrough evidence of recent water flow on Mars
• New developments in asteroid-tracking programs
• New information on the nature and shape of our universe
• Mind-bending theories concerning multiple universes
• Information on the latest telescopes

As a bonus, this book includes a fascinating CDROM with more than 200 of the most spectacular images from NASA, star maps, and other tools for backyard astronomers.

Genres: Science, Reference, Astronomy, Nonfiction, Physics, Space

352 pages, Paperback

First published September 18, 1998

Reviews

[jesse · Rating 3 out of 5]

Solar system

Since the beginning of time humankind has been fascinated about the earth, sun, moon, stars, planets, --in sum, the cosmos in general. It does make sense, we didn't have anything other to do to entertain ourselves. Stargazing seemed to be the most logical thing to do. Is it really surprising to hear that astronomy is the oldest known science, which is still modern? Nope.

After I read a relatively short book explaining the stars, universe, planets, meteors, moon, eclipses, etc. in simple words (most of the time), my interest had been stirred and I wanted to know more without having to concern myself about unnecessary jargon for which I didn't have any use nor patience.

From what I've seen the book doesn't have as many illustrations as I had hoped and instead relies on words. Fat minus. Also I'm not yet finished with the book, but am going to write the interesting bits and pieces in my review gradually for the sake of consistency (who knows how much I'm going to remember at the end?) HERE GOES:

Early astronomers figured that stars where attached on a heavenly canopy which moved around the unmoving earth and thus accordingly gave it the term "celestial sphere". It looked something like this:


But a few stars (five) seemed to move regardless of the more or less fixed stars on the celestial sphere. They were named: planetes, "wanderers". Now, of course we know better: The coordinates of the earth cannot be applied to the stars! There is no celestial sphere as such, because NOT only does the earth spin around on its axis, it's also orbiting the sun as well. A discovery reserved for much, much later though.

The constellations are star patterns which show particular pictures and we have the greeks who played Connect the dots, to thank for this imaginative use. The celestial sphere has been divided into 88 official constellations (including the zodiac constellations). An Asterism (a conspicuous subgroup within a constellation) is being used to help detect a constellation

"In much the same way that states are divided into counties, the night sky is divided into constellations."
(p11, 2nd Edition)

Fortunately there are always nonconformists around, otherwise we'd still believe we were living on a plate, where we could fall off the face of the earth. Humans are known to be egocentric creatures. The church said that it was God's intention for the earth to be the center of all things, which is why, "of course", the sun and the moon and all other things had to orbit around the earth.


Flammarion woodcut by Anonymous

Remember him?

The Sirius most know vs. the Sirius some know

Sirius, (also called "Dog Star") is the brightest star in the heavens and happens to be part of the Canis Major, the Great Dog constellation.

The most notable countries, which appear repeatedly in the science of astronomy are probably: America, Arabia, Egypt, Greece and India.
A long, long time ago the ancient Egyptians thought the universe was contained in a rectangular box

The universe = rectangular box

The greek or more accurately Anaximander (610–546/545 B.C.E.) is believed to be the founder of cosmology and held the belief that the earth was at the center of everything and thus didn't need to move. Our planet looked like a short can


The earth is a soup can!

Pythagoras didn't teach his students that the earth was an unmoving can, but rather a globe.

Pythogoras

A little while later Aristarchus even went so far as to claim that the sun was the center, not the earth and all the while orbited the sun while at the same time rotating. The people had a hard time believing that the earth was not the center of our solar system and the universe. So they didn't. The geocentric model sustained (thousands of years).

[Scribblescribe · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a really good book. Very difficult to read though and I think it would've been easier had it had pictures and diagrams to explain certain phenomena. It was quite difficult for me to wrap my brain around it. It's taken me over a decade to be able to slog through it. Also, this edition of this book was written in 2004, so I have to wonder what new things we know about now in the astronomy field that this book leaves out. It's a must re-read because if you're totally new to astronomy you probably won't be able to grasp everything being said in this book.

[Brian Turner · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good introduction to astronomy, although I found I had to read it in small chunks rather than try to get through it quickly.

The author manages to get the concepts across in an easily understood way.

[Jesse · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought this book in hopes of learning more about viewing the celestial bodies surrouding earth and our solar system. Instead this book provides a good lesson on Cosmology. From the Big Bang, to the coalescence of super stars, the formation of planets and guesstimates for the future are all detailed for the layman. I really enjoyed this book despite its lack of focus on practical backyard astronomy. I would recommend this book to anyone wanting to learn more about the history of our universe.

[Fadel Milad · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was a good book, I read this book before I got into Google space, right after I bought my first telescope. It really helped me learn the techniques of managing the telescope and also some other telescopes, it guided me to my next one; the Celestron 130, and I came to a 100% use of the book, I started to take trips to the country side with my girlfriend and I remember seeing the lunar surfaces, Saturn's ring the polar caps on Mars, the cloud belts on Jupiter for the first time, it was truly amazing experience!

[Papajack · Rating 3 out of 5]

You always learn something from these quick looks into a complex subject. This was no exception.

[Mel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting stuff!!

[Alyssa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was very helpful in preparing me for my Astronomy DSST test. I would definately recommend it!