Cosmos

by Sylvia Arditi, Marc Lachieze-Rey

A dramatic photographic tour of the universe. The observable universe contains some hundred billion galaxies -- each one made up of as many stars. Of the vast billions of stars, only a scant 5,000 are actually visible from Earth with the naked eye. Over the last twenty years, space probes and space-based telescopes have released us from the confines of Earth and catapulted us into the open reaches of space to capture worlds beyond our own. Cosmos showcases magnificent celestial objects of unparalleled beauty, gathering the most dramatic images of the night sky - from close planets and our sun to the most remote galaxies. It features the latest images from space from sources including Hubble, NASA and the European Space Agency. The light of some stars and galaxies take several billion years to reach to us. In fact some of the blazing stars featured in Cosmos are already dead. This remarkable voyage shows frozen and fiery worlds of stars and galaxies as they are created and as they are dying. Cosmos is organized into the following Cosmos , an inspiring, rare and unobstructed view into the far reaches of space, is for anyone who has ever gazed into the night sky and wondered what was actually out there.

Genres: Science

176 pages, Hardcover

First published November 6, 2004

Reviews

[H (trying to keep up with GR friends) Balikov · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you want to look at some very beautiful photographs of various objects in space, Cosmos in its over-sized format, can help fill that need. The text yields to the photos and provides plenty of opportunities to direct further inquiries outside the bounds of this volume.

On the minus side: the most recent (and far more nuanced) photographs from our telescopes in space make this more of a historical compendium.

[Pete daPixie · Rating 3 out of 5]

First published a decade ago, this is a coffee table companion that contains some astonishing photographic views, accompanied by short text descriptions.
'Cosmos' contains a collection of photographs taken from space probes of solar system objects, to the very large earth based and space telescopes providing stunning full and double page spreads of diffuse and planetary nebulas, star clusters, supernovas, all the way to galaxy clusters some billions of light years away.
My favourites are the nebulas. I still blow my mind when I view such as the Orion nebula through my 200mm big CAT. I can easily resolve the four stars at the centre of this diffuse nebula, some 1,200 light years away. My view is of a grey smudge. In these views the vast fields of ionised hydrogen glow red, taken with the European V.L.T. in Chile.
My first view of a planetary nebula was through a 16" scope locked onto the Eskimo nebula. When astronauts fixed the faulty Hubble Telescope back in 2000, the first target was the Eskimo. The photograph is in this book. Also included are full double page spreads of the Red Spider and Ant nebulas.
One problem with coffee table gems such as this one is you are quite liable to end up with cold coffee.

[Millefolium Potiron · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ce livre m’accompagne depuis l’enfance - avant que je puisse comprendre les textes - et ses images me semblent aujourd’hui encore toujours aussi belles. C’est le livre parfait pour entretenir une vision poétique pour le cosmos, il suffit de le feuilleter...