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Beginners who have just joined an astronomy club will not find a better first book.
List of contents
Foreword; Preface; Acknowledgements; Part I. Getting Started: 1. First night out; 2. Without a telescope; 3. Meteors; 4. Choosing a telescope; 5. Telescopes, advanced; 6. Recording your observations; Part II. Moon, Sun and Planets: 7. The moon; 8. Moon II: advanced observations; 9. The sun; 10. Jupiter; 11. Saturn; 12. Mars; 13. Five planets worth watching; Part III. Minor Bodies: 14. Asteroids; 15. Comets; Part IV. Deep Sky: 16. Double stars; 17. Variable stars; 18. TV corvi: a variable star adventure; 19. The deep sky; 20. Messier hunting; 21. The sky on film; 22. The electronic revolution, part I: CCDs; 23. The electronic revolution, part II: astrometry; Part V. Special Events: 24. Solar eclipses; 25. Lunar eclipses and occulations; Part Vi. A Miscellany: 26. Passing the torch; 27. The poet's sky; 28. My favorite objects; Appendix: resources; Index.
About the author
David H. Levy is the co-discoverer of Comet Shoemaker-Levy, which slammed into Jupiter in 1994 in a series of spectacular explosions with a force equal to several million tons of TNT. He is the author of More Things in Heaven and Earth, the Man Who Sold the Milky Way, The Ultimate Universe and Impact Jupiter. Levy was asked by Parade Magazine to take over the science column after the death of Carl Sagan. Levy is also the editor of The Scientific American Book of the Cosmos.
Summary
Beginners who have just joined an astronomy club or amateurs who wish to learn more about what can be accomplished with a small telescope will not find a better first book.
