Dynamics of Comets and Asteroids and Their Role in Earth History

Book Description

This volume of proceedings contains research and review papers concerning the dynamics of asteroids and comets and especially their interactions with the Earth as signified by geological and historical records. Remembering what may have happened to the dinosaurs, but being careful to avoid creating irrational scares, the papers attempt to improve our knowledge of dynamics of the small objects of the Solar System and to assess in particular their effects on the Earth environment and the evolution of life.
This book will be an up-to-date source of information to astronomers and dynamicists interested in the dynamics of small bodies of the Solar system, as well as to geologists and paleobiologists interested in the effects on the Earth of extraterrestrial bombardment by asteroids and comets.

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Venus in Transit doesn't cast a long shadow
Incomplete history, muddled science
Interesting, simple astronomy
A syzygy for everyone
From Unobserved to Key Measurements to Celestial Joy

Venus in Transit
Eli Maor
Manufacturer: Princeton University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0691115893

Book Description

In 2004, Venus crossed the sun's face for the first time since 1882. Some did not bother to step outside. Others planned for years, reserving tickets to see the transit in its entirety. But even this group of astronomers and experience seekers were attracted not by scientific purpose but by the event's beauty, rarity, and perhaps--after this book--history. For previous sky-watchers, though, transits afforded the only chance to determine the all-important astronomical unit: the mean distance between earth and sun.

Eli Maor tells the intriguing tale of the five Venus transits previously observed and the fantastic efforts made to record them. This is a story of heroes and cowards, of reputations earned and squandered, all told against a backdrop of phenomenal geopolitical and scientific change.

With a novelist's talent for the details that keep readers reading late, Maor tells the stories of how Kepler's misguided theology led him to the laws of planetary motion; of obscure Jeremiah Horrocks, who predicted the 1639 transit only to die, at age 22, a day before he was to discuss the event with the only other human known to have seen it; of the unfortunate Le Gentil, whose decade of labor was rewarded with obscuring clouds, shipwreck, and the plundering of his estate by relatives who prematurely declared him dead; of David Rittenhouse, Father of American Astronomy, who was overcome by the 1769 transit's onset and failed to record its beginning; and of Maximilian Hell, whose good name long suffered from the perusal of his transit notes by a color-blind critic.

Moving beyond individual fates, Maor chronicles how governments' participation in the first international scientific effort--the observation of the 1761 transit from seventy stations, yielding a surprisingly accurate calculation of the astronomical unit using Edmund Halley's posthumous directions--intersected with the Seven Years' War, British South Seas expansion, and growing American scientific prominence. Throughout, Maor guides readers to the upcoming Venus transits in 2004 and 2012, opportunities to witness a phenomenon seen by no living person and not to be repeated until 2117

Customer Reviews:

Venus in Transit doesn't cast a long shadow.......2004-03-11

I read e: The Story of a Number and Trigonometric Delights from Eli Maor and found both to be well written and enjoyable. With the transit of Venus approaching, the previous experience with Eli Maor brought me to his latest book. The writing style is the same, clear, fluent, but Venus in Transit is at a different level, more superficial than any of the other two books. And a couple of statements make you wonder. On page 58 "...Venus reaches its ascending node around December 8, and its descending node around June 7, so a transit can happen only around these dates. But for a transit actually to occur, Earth, too, must cross the line of the nodes on these dates." There is an inversion here, for Earth reaches the line of nodes at the given dates, while Venus is usually elsewhere in its orbit at these dates as already pointed by another reviewer. And then on page 20 when describing Galileo's observations of the phases of Venus as the first solid proof for the heliocentric system, the author states: " Venus showed phases like the moon - a narrow crescent at the time, a gibbous shape at another, and occasionally a nearly full disk. Here was solid proof that Venus moved around the sun; for had it moved around d the earth instead, it would have shown a full disk at each opposition, when it was directly opposite to the sun [sic]." This is surprising. Venus is never at opposition with the Sun as the ancients new very well by observation. The epicycles and deferents in the geocentric system of Ptolemy had their sizes and speeds carefully adjusted to account for the maximum elongation of 47 degrees or so along the ecliptic between the Sun and Venus. And although the geocentric system could not account for a full disk because in that system Venus was always between the Earth and the Sun, the alternative system proposed by Tycho Brahe could. These two inconsistencies suggest that Eli Maor is not exactly at home when discussing planetary astronomy and perhaps this is the source of the different levels between this book and the other two dealing with mathematics.

Incomplete history, muddled science.......2001-06-22

I have read a few of Eli Maor's books. They are not great masterpieces, but they fill a niche, providing all the information I wanted and more. This one was less satisfying. This became clear on page 58, where he states that Venus crosses the ecliptic on December 8 and June 7, and transits can occur only when Earth reaches the same node at the same time. Perhaps he is using the Venusian calendar, but in our calendar Earth will be there in December and June while the location of Venus will vary.

I bought this book because the transit of Venus in 1874 was significant in the history of Campbell Island (French expedition)and Auckland Island (German expedition) in the sub-Antarctic region. There were also Americans on Kerguelen and French on St. Paul Island, and probably others. Maor mentions only the British and German expeditions to Kerguelen, where the Brits released rabbits that devastated the native vegetation. The scale of the effort is not apparent from his tale.

My second objective was to learn what other mmethods were used to measure the astronomical unit when the transit of Venus proved inadequate. Maor mentions only that a measurement of the parallaz of Mars was used, but gives no hint how. Apparently there were other methods before WWII, but they are not in this book. Too much space is devoted to failures and speculations, pleasant stories properly used as side dishes, too little to the main course.

Interesting, simple astronomy.......2001-06-17

This book traces the history of the Venus transit, which is when Venus transits between the sun and earth, thus casting the planet's shadow on the sun. Happening only every 121 years, Maor explores the lives of the many scientists that studied the Venus transit in order to come up with an estimation of the astral unit (the distance between the sun and earth...about 93 million miles), including Galileo, Hell, Copernicus, Kepler, Brahe, and more. The book is very good, and one is left marveling at astronomy and eager to the coming of the transit, but Maor is very extensive in his history at times.

A syzygy for everyone.......2000-12-26

A transit of Venus is a kind of solar eclipse in which the planet Venus, rather than our moon, crosses in front of the Sun. A century-long interval between transits makes the normal kind of solar eclipse seem like a frequent event. The transits occur in pairs separated by eight years, with over one hundred-year separations between the pairs. The last transit of Venus was in 1882. However, we can look forward to the transits of 2004 and 2012.

By traveling thousands of miles, I have been able to place myself in the path of the shadow for six total and two annular solar eclipses. With careful planning, and some last minute scurrying to avoid clouds, my success rate for viewing of the critical event is seven of eight. How ironic that today I was able to walk into my own back yard to view a partial solar eclipse under a clear cloudless sky.

By contrast with total solar eclipses, which may be viewed only within a narrow corridor, a transit of Venus may be viewed from any place on the Earth that faces the Sun during the event. Thus, simultaneous observations may be made from distant locations.

The author tells the story of the pursuit of transits of Venus by scientists whose aim was to establish a precision measurement of the distance between the Earth and the Sun. It is a great adventure story. There are the usual disasters: there are wars; ships are intercepted; natives run off with the instruments; and there are clouds. Finally, an unexpected optical effect, the "black drop", appears. In the end science triumphs, although not as expected.

We no longer need to measure the transits of Venus to establish the astronomical unit. However, our ability to calculate and predict precise locations and times for the occurrence of such events as eclipses and transits is a confirmation of the success of our formulation of mechanics and an affirmation of the scientific method.

This work is primarily a history with the basic information on the details of the transit of 2004 and very little on the transit of 2012. The reader will have to go to the web for more. However, the eastern Mediterranean looks promising for 2004, while the transit of 2012 should provide an excuse for a trip to Hawaii.

From Unobserved to Key Measurements to Celestial Joy.......2000-12-15

Whether you are interested in astronomy or not, you will find this book to be a rewarding expansion of your understanding of that important, awe-inspiring part of the scientific pantheon.

The phrase, transit of Venus, describes the process whereby Venus appears to cross the Sun during daylight hours from earth. For most of recorded history, few probably paid attention. And for good reason. You would have been blinded by looking directly into the sun except very near sunrise and sunset. And you had to know when and where to be looking because transits of Venus are rare. Besides, you could see Venus on most nights anyway.

In this delightful background preparation for the next transit of Venus on June 8, 2004, Professor Maor provides all the background you could hope for to help you understand how celestial events (especially this one) are forecast so accurately, their scientific implications, and how to enjoy them yourself.

Many famous astronomers were encouraged to enter the field by first observing an eclipse. The ability to accurately predict the timing and the nature of the event left them with awe. Perhaps this transit of Venus will be our most productive ever for generating scholars for the 21st century. Oh, by the way, if you miss this one, there's another one coming along 8 years later in 2012.

Although ostensibly focused on a type of celestial event, the book has a broader theme: How humankind can use reason to deduce new understanding of the physical world.

The book begins with the origins of modern astronomy, by describing the observations of Galileo, the conclusions about the solar system by Copernicus, careful measurements of Brahe, Kepler's deductions from those observations, and Newton's application of these lessons into his Principia. All of that work made it possible to predict transits of Venus.

Since we all can see Venus with the unaided eye (unless blind or very near-sighted), why did anyone care? The main reason was that astronomers wanted to establish the distance between the earth and the Sun. They obviously could not pace it off. How could Venus help? By measuring the duration of the transit from far apart locations of known distance, one could construct a triangle and use standard trigonometry to calculate the distance to the Sun. This point is clearly and simply described in the book. The illustrations are wonderfully done to help.

Then the author gets down to the reality of executing on that simple concept. Many problems occur. At first, not enough observers are involved. Bad weather at the time of the transit can always obscure observations. The combination of our atmosphere and that of Venus also combine to create a black dot effect that makes it uncertain when the transit begins and ends. Some observers are accused of making mistakes. Other observers notice things that are not planetary transits. Thus, the realities and challenges of experimental science are well documented.

Astronomers have better ways to measure the distance to the Sun now. As a result, the transit of Venus takes on for us a combined role of aesthetic experience and honoring of the astronomical history associated with it. Professor Maor makes a nice transition in making this point clear.

He provides many tips for watching, including where to go, and how to watch safely. He describes a potential viewing from Jerusalem. That could be combined with a very nice religious pilgrimage, if you are so inclined, for those who have not been to Jerusalem before.

I especially liked his commentaries about seeing Earth transits from Mars, and transits of the inner planets from the outer ones as our ability to pursue space travel improves.

I think the most important question that this book raises is who to have with you when you observe the transit. A young person somewhere between the ages of 6 and 16 would probably be ideal. You could probably change a life with the experience that this event provides. I suggest that you provide that young person with a copy of this book (if old enough to appreciate it on their own) or read it to them and explain its meaning (if they are not advanced enough to appreciate it unaided). Then make a date to see the following transit 8 years later with the same person.

Book Description

Publication of Galileo's Starry Messenger in 1610, detailing startling observations with the newly invented telescope, sparked immediate furor among the astronomers and philosophers of the day. The discovery of the "Medicean stars" (the satellites of Jupiter) was pronounced a hoax, an optical illusion, a logical and theological impossibility. Stillman Drake, one of the world's foremost Galileo scholars, recreates in Telescopes, Tides, and Tactics the fascinating aftermath of the publication of the Starry Messenger. Drawing on Galileo's scientific working papers and the letters and notebooks of his colleagues, Drake presents an imaginative Galilean dialogue using the text of the Starry Messenger as a departure point for discussions of appropriate scientific method, new discoveries, and the emergence of a new world view at this early stage of the Scientific Revolution.

Drake has revised his earlier abridged translation of the Starry Messenger, and for the first time the entire work is presented here in modern English. No other edition or translation of this famous work has analyzed Galileo's recorded observations in detail, compared them with modern calculations, or explained the later use he made of them. In the accompanying fictional dialogue, Salviati, Sagredo, and Sarpi reread the Starry Messenger in 1613 and discuss events and issues raised in the three years since its publication. Much of the dialogue is based on archival materials not previously cited in English. Drake has unearthed a wealth of information that will interest the lay reader as well as the historian and the scientist—descriptions of the various and occasionally bizarre critics of Galileo, a reconstruction of Galileo's promised book on the system of the world, his tables of observations and calculations of satellite motions, and evidence for an early tide theory. It was this theory explaining tides by motions of the earth, rather than the influence of Platonic metaphysics, Drake argues that played a major role in Galileo's acceptance of Copernican astronomy.

Telescopes, Tides, and Tactics is a thorough portrait of Galileo as a working astronomer. Offering much more than a commentary on the Starry Messenger, Drake has written a novel and absorbing contribution to the history of physics and astronomy and the study of the Scientific Revolution.

Water and the Search for Life on Mars (Springer Praxis Books / Space Exploration)

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Stuck in the details
Mars as we now know it

Water and the Search for Life on Mars (Springer Praxis Books / Space Exploration)
David M. Harland
Manufacturer: Praxis
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 038726020X

Book Description

Mars has long been believed to have been cold, dead and dry for aeons, but there is now striking new proof that not only was Mars a relatively warm and wet place in geologically recent times, but that even today there are vast reserves of water frozen beneath the planet’s surface. As well as casting fascinating new insights into Mars’ past, this discovery is also forcing a complete rethink about the mechanisms of global planetary change and the possibility that there is microbial life on Mars.

David Harland considers the issue of life on Mars in parallel with the origin of life on Earth. At the time the Viking instruments were designed, it was thought that all terrestrial life ultimately derived its energy from sunlight, and that the earliest form of life was the cyanobacteria with chlorophyll for photosynthesis. It was assumed the same would be the case on Mars and that microbial life would be on or near the surface that the Vikings had sampled.

No sooner were the results from the Viking instruments in, than it was discovered that there was an even older type of microbial life on Earth when, in 1977 ‘black smokers’ were found in volcanically active parts of the ocean floor, at depths of several kilometres. Removed from sunlight, these archaea (literally, ‘the old ones’) live off the minerals released by the hydrothermal activity. Subsequently our view of life was further revised when ‘extremophiles’ were discovered thriving in acidic, salty, alkaline, very hot, very cold and radiation soaked environments previously considered lethal. Although the Vikings had found no sign of organics, and the surface was extremely hostile, suggesting that life had never gained a foothold, the discovery of microbes living far beneath the surface of the Earth raised the possibility of life below the surface of Mars, where there may be water-ice and/or hydrothermal activity. Perhaps, because the microbes were beyond the reach of the Vikings’ instruments, the negative result was premature.

Following the negative tests for biological activity by the Vikings, NASA – in the belief that Mars was once warm and wet, as the erosional features on the surface suggest – decided to ‘chase the water’ in the hope of establishing that conditions on Mars were once suitable for life, although this would not prove that life had developed. The targets selected (from many) were what seemed to be an outflow channel, a dry lake and a patch of minerals emplaced by hydrothermal activity. In 1997 Mars Pathfinder landed in an outflow channel where it released the small Sojourner rover to perform chemical analyses of nearby rocks. NASA followed up in 2004 with the much larger Mars Exploration Rovers, which were equipped to act as mobile field geologists. One was landed in what seemed to be a dried up lake bed inside a crater, and the other set down in an area that a remote-sensing orbital survey had identified as haematite, a likely indicator of hydrothermal activity. Both of these missions have yielded evidence that conditions were once conducive to the development of life.

In parallel with these NASA projects, the European Space Agency developed the Mars Express remote-sensing orbiter, which has detected traces of methane that may have been released by microbes. If microbial life is found on Mars, will it be based on DNA? Will this indicate that life developed independently? Or that it has characteristics in common with the most ancient forms of terrestrial life? If life is found on two planets in the same planetary system, this would favour the panspermia hypothesis. And if martian life is radically different, then in light of the discovery of planetary systems around other stars, this would, as remarked by Philip Morrison of MIT, "transform life from the status of a miracle to that of a statistic". These are all questions that the exploration of Mars for life are aimed to answer.

Customer Reviews:

Stuck in the details.......2007-08-24

The author clearly has a problem of not being able to focus on the big picture. With a name like "Water and the search for life on mars," one would expect the main theme of the book to specifically be about the characteristics of Mars that point to the possibility of life. However, this is not the case. Harland consistently gets stuck in mundane details such as how NASA actually lands its probes, the different stages of a specific landing, and what are the different gadgets on each probe and lander. Furthermore, he goes on for about 30 pages trying to lecture the reader about the biology of DNA, proteins, and amino acids. He simply tries to cover too many topics at once and this leaves the reader exhausted, confused, and frustrated.

I picked up this book because I was intrigued about why scientists actually believe there might have been life on Mars in the past or if there currently is life on the planet. Instead I found myself reading uninteresting details about how a crater is formed and why there are mechanical failures on NASA probes. Harland spends a significant amount of time discussing how NASA conducts their missions instead of actually focusing on the much more interesting topic of life on other planets.

Overall, I do not recommend this book for anyone that is specifically interested about the possibility of life on Mars. You will lose yourself in the technical details and get frustrated by the book's lack of focus.

Mars as we now know it.......2007-02-28

David Harland has done an excellent job summarizing the results of international efforts to explore Mars with telescopes and, now, robotic spacecraft. Our understanding has increased dramatically in recent years thanks to high-resolution mapping from orbiting spacecraft and, primarily, to the astonishing discoveries of the Mars Exploration Rovers: Spirit and Opportunity. I found some of the geological discussion in the middle part of the book a bit challenging, but well worth the effort because I think I now have at least a passing appreciation for overall context of the Rover missions. The preliminaries occupy the first 130 pages of Harland's book and the real meat is in the 90 pages or so that follow, detailing the traverses and results of Spirit and Opportunity during their first 350 or so martian days on the planet. The evidence for wet periods in the history of Mars is clearly presented and of great value to a non-expert like me. My only reservation is that more attention could have been paid to cross-referencing and labeling of the maps. Highly recommended.

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The Life and Times of a Genius
Lost in Civl War of England, but Rediscovered.
A Forgotten Astronomer, Worth Remembering

Transit of Venus
Peter Aughton
Manufacturer: Orion Publishing Group, Limited
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0753818752

Book Description

There is a missing chapter in the history of astronomy—between the work of Galileo and Newton—and it is a chapter that belongs to England. In the period before the English Civil War, Horrocks was the greatest astronomer in the kingdom. He knew the positions and motions of the planets more accurately than any person of his time, and was the first to appreciate the true scale of the solar system and formulate a valid theory for the wanderings of the moon. Yet he was not an elderly grey-bearded sage, but a young man living in provincial obscurity, who on his death had barely come of age but who left a great scientific legacy.

Customer Reviews:

The Life and Times of a Genius.......2006-05-21

The accomplishments of Jeremiah Horrocks, as depicted in this book, are truly astounding. The author carefully reconstructs Horrocks' genealogy, his brief life and his ground-breaking work in astronomy, amidst the backdrop of seventeenth century England. The book is well-written, clear and engaging. Less appealing to me was that the book contains many passages reproduced in the original old English. This slowed me down a bit since I found them cumbersome due to the different spelling and sentence structure characteristic of the period. On the other hand, this may be inevitable, at least to some degree, because of the book's subject matter. Overall, this is an interesting read that would likely be particularly appealing to astronomers at all levels.

Lost in Civl War of England, but Rediscovered........2005-04-22

Since the dawn of history, every civilization has seen men who studied the skies. In Europe and Asia, astronomers existed in Babylon, Egypt, India and China. In America, the Incas and Aztecs built pyramids and temples which showed knowledge and fascination with the sun, moon, and stars in the night sky. England had Stonehenge.

There's not much factual knowledge about Jeremiah Horrocks short
life; there has been only one other biography to surface, published in 1859 by A. B. Whatton. Photographs show the area and places he lived as he moved about. Born in May, 1618, he was only fourteen years old when he entered Cambridge on July 5, 1632. Just seven years later (1639), he was knowledgeable about the solar system and his observation of the primitive set-up he used in Carr House to view a rare celestial event, the "transit of Venus" was documented. It is similar to the way we are encouraged to watch the eclipse of the sun so as not to be blinded by the strong rays. He died in 1641.

The Royal Greenwith Observatory was founded in 1675; John Flamsteed was appointed as the first Astronomer Royal. However, Jeremiah Horrock is known as the "Father of British Astronomy. This book was released to coincide with the June, 2004, viewing of Venus moving across the face of the sun (for only the fifth time since the 1639 occurrence: about every 73 years or so).

My son Geoffrey earned his PhD in Astronomy at the University of Chicago and learned how to handle the monster telescopes at Kitt Peak as a grad student way out there in Arizona.

Peter Aughton has written ENDEAVOR, RESOLUTION, and NEWTON'S APPLE. He teaches at the University of the West of England and a Fellow of the Institute for Math. In 1970s he was involved with the Concorde supersonic airliner. He certainly knows his astronomy from primitive times.

A Forgotten Astronomer, Worth Remembering.......2004-08-31

Isaac Newton famously said, "If I have seen further than others before me, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants." Newton was not always so quick to acknowledge his debt to his fellow scientists, but everyone knows the remark could apply to indisputable giants like Galileo and Kepler. However, he also would have meant a giant who has, almost three centuries later, become almost an unknown within the history of astronomy. In _The Transit of Venus: The Brief, Brilliant Life of Jeremiah Horrocks, Father of British Astronomy_ (Weidenfeld & Nicolson), Peter Aughton, who has written before on the voyages of Captain Cook and on Newton, puts Horrocks into his rightful place. It would be too much to say that he gives us a full picture of Horrocks and his work, for the mass of materials about the astronomer is just too meager. However, Horrocks was a brilliant astronomical observer and theoretician, and Newton knew it then as we should now.

There was in June 2004 a transit of Venus, only the fifth since Horrocks watched his in 1639. A transit occurs when Venus seems to cross the face of the Sun, and was important in those days because it could be used to calculate how far the Sun was from the Earth. He studied Kepler's work at college in Cambridge, and trusted Kepler, but not blindly; he discovered that Kepler, who had correctly predicted a 1631 transit of Venus, had mistakenly missed a transit that was coming in 1639. Horrocks only realized this with a month to spare, but he was ready to trace the planet crossing the Sun; he did so by training his telescope on the Sun and projecting the picture upon a screen within a darkened room. It was his mathematical analysis of the movements and timing of what he had seen that enabled him to confirm that Venus was moving in an elliptical orbit around the Sun, just as Kepler's laws had implied. However, a clear view of the planet crossing the solar disk showed it to be much smaller than Kepler had thought, and the calculated distance between the Earth and the Sun was far larger than any previous astronomer had come close to considering. Copernicus had estimated the distance to be 7.5 million kilometers, Kepler 22.1, and Horrocks weighed in with 95.4. Even then, he was well below the real figure of 149, but it can be said without exaggeration that he was the first man who had an inkling of how big the solar system really was.

Horrocks wrote up his account of the transit, and also went on to show that the Moon tracked an elliptical, not circular, path around the Earth, although the path of the Moon wobbled irregularly due to the gravity of the Sun. He also showed that Saturn and Jupiter were vastly larger than the Earth. Astonishingly, he made these discoveries when he was only twenty-two; only a year later in 1641 he was dead. There is no evidence about the cause of his death. His account of his researches was not published until 1662, and he was belatedly recognized as a genius by the new Royal Society. His work was revolutionary at the time he did it, but was not as influential as it could have been, if he had been within the mainstream of British science rather than observing and theorizing near Liverpool, if he had lived longer, and if Britain were not torn by its Civil War. Newton, in his monumental _Principia_, gave special credit to Horrocks for divining the elliptical orbit of the Moon. His influence might be small, but his importance as an observer and as a theoretician (those qualities are not often so well combined in one person) is clear. As much as can be known about him is in Aughton's necessarily brief but admiring review, from which readers will get a good idea of how astronomy was done at the time, and a welcome introduction to an original thinker.

In Search of Planet Vulcan: The Ghost in Newton's Clockwork Universe

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A great read
Another home run by Sheehan...
No good
The concepts behind the discovery of the solar system
A compelling search for a nonexistent planet

In Search of Planet Vulcan: The Ghost in Newton's Clockwork Universe
Richard Baum , and William Sheehan
Manufacturer: Basic Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Amazon.com

Today every schoolchild learns that our solar system contains nine planets in orbit around the sun--plus a variety of other bodies such as asteroids--but as Richard Baum and William Sheehan describe in In Search of Planet Vulcan, the discovery of these facts was far from straightforward. In a book rich with historical anecdotes, Baum and Sheehan depict centuries of efforts to enumerate the inhabitants of our solar system. In some cases the successes are stunning proof of the veracity of Newtonian mechanics; in others, such as the quest for a hypothetical planet "Vulcan" orbiting well inside Mercury, the fallacies and failures are equally staggering.

Book Description

The intriguing narrative of one of astronomy's strangest searches for a planet that never existed.

Customer Reviews:

A great read.......2005-05-20

This was a fascinating story, the search for a planet whose orbit was inside Mercury's. So sure were astronomers of the time that it existed they gave it a name, Vulcan. An amateur, Lescarbault, claimed to have seen it pass in front of the Sun, but in the proceeding years, no one else could catch a glimpse of it. So, did it really exist, and if not, how to explain the perturbation in Mercury's orbit? I thought this book was very well written in its depictions of real people and the encounters they had with each other as they raced to become the first to prove the existence of Vulcan. The hard science is written in a way to be understandable even to people like me without a mind for it.

Another home run by Sheehan..........2000-12-06

Another gem of a book by William Sheehan, joined in this venture by astronomer Richard Baum. In the 18th and 19th centuries, Newton's theory of universal gravitation had enjoyed some incredible triumphs, and stood as a monument to the mathematization of science. Three thorny problems remained however, to disrupt the harmony of Newton's universe: the motion of the moon, Mercury, and Uranus. Sheehan and Baum tell the amazing tale of mathematics and astronomy in their pursuit of the answers to these puzzles. This book is a must-read for any buff of astronomy history - Newton, Horrocks, Clairaut, Laplace, Lagrange, and so on. Considerable time is given to the discovery of Neptune, first on paper by Adams and Le Verrier, and by Galle at the telescope. Sheehan and Baum's retelling of his historic tale is even better documented than Grosser's book on the subject. Finally, the problem of the shift in Mercury's orbit. The pressure to find a Newtonian solution was immense, given the previous victories obtained using Newtonian mechanics. Le Verrier was susceptible to this pressure, owing at least in part to his previous success with Neptune. However, this problem resisted even Newton, and was not finally solved until Einstein's theory of gravity supplanted Newton's early in the 20th century. The interwoven stories of astronomers and their diligent search for the elusive planet Vulcan are entertaining and provide a unique perspective on 19th century astronomy.

No good.......1999-08-19

This was a pitiful excuse for a book. Not one mention of Mr. Spock or any of the other great Vulcans from Star Trek. You would think that if they wanted to do a search for the planet Vulcan, they would have taken it more seriously.

The concepts behind the discovery of the solar system.......1999-07-17

As an occasional naked eye astronomer I was able to follow Sheehan and Baum's work without difficulty. They provide an accessible history of the development of the concepts that lie behind the discovery of the solar system from Ptolemy to Einstein. They describe observations by astronomers but also pay attention to contributions from mathematicians without presenting the readers with a single equation. There are brief biographical asides on some of the main players (Sheehan's day job is as a psychiatrist) but the main thrust of the book is scientific.

Particular interest is shown in the (serendipitous) discovery of Uranus followed by the (predicted) discovery of Neptune. The discovery of Neptune based on the known perturbations of the orbit of Uranus. This success focussed attention on the erratic orbit of Mercury, which advances seemingly inexplicably. We now know that this apparent motion is caused by the bending of space/time by the Sun's gravity, but the authors leave this for last. At the top of the conceptual staircase we learn that when Einstein explained the advance in Mercury's orbit using Relativity he couldn't sleep for 3 days with the excitement.

A compelling search for a nonexistent planet.......1999-01-29

I know what you're thinking--an entire book about a planet that doesn't even exist? Although Vulcan doesn't exist, fortunately this book does, because it's very good. The early pages tell us a little more than we need to know about Kepler and Newton, who are hardly central to the story, but then it moves to the discovery of new planets--Uranus, Neptune, and then to the heart of the matter: the irregularities in Mercury's motion that seemed to signal the existence of Vulcan, a planet inside Mercury's orbit. The book has plenty of notes and references, but it's also a lively and compelling read. It fits in well with other recent planet books, such as David Grinspoon's VENUS REVEALED, Alan Stern and Jacqueline Mitton's PLUTO AND CHARON, and Ken Croswell's PLANET QUEST. Plus, it's got a cool cover!

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Excellent book for those interested in the topic
Worthwhile despite a quirky complaint...
A tribute to the asteroids and comets hunters
A good history of the "vermin of the skies."

Asteroids: A History
PEEBLES CURTIS , and Curtis Peebles
Manufacturer: Smithsonian
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1560989823

Amazon.com

Asteroids are many things to many people. For some observers, those "mountains in the sky" point to the cataclysmic origins of the universe. Others see untold wealth in the planetary fragments, which harbor great stores of precious metals. Still others see in asteroids the likelihood of global destruction--after all, one of them, slamming into the earth millions of years ago, may very well have condemned the dinosaurs to extinction, and deep space harbors untold potential threats to the earth.

In this engaging volume, Curtis Peebles surveys the science of asteroids, offering a highly readable account of the many ways in which they form out of the flotsam and jetsam of larger celestial bodies, the dust and debris of space. He adds to this scientific overview an anecdotal history of asteroid discovery and detection, which, he writes, was often the work of gifted astronomers working with less than ideal equipment, and all too often dismissed by their professional counterparts. Peebles discusses in detail the rules by which asteroids are catalogued and named--some, for instance, bear the monikers of eminent scientists, others of their patrons, and still others of more unlikely honorees, such as the group of asteroids named for the various Beatles. He also touches on efforts to protect Earth from asteroid impacts--the father of that planetary defense being none other than the poet Lord Byron--which he calls "the only natural disaster that human society can prevent."

Students of the history of space science will profit from Peebles's careful research, while astronomy buffs will enjoy his lucid narrative. --Gregory McNamee

Book Description

Asteroids suggest images of a catastrophic impact with Earth, triggering infernos, tidal waves, famine, and death -- but these scenarios have obscured the larger story of how asteroids have been discovered and studied. During the past two centuries, the quest for knowledge about asteroids has involved eminent scientists and amateur astronomers, patient research and sudden intuition, advanced technology and the simplest of telescopes, newspaper headlines and Cold War secrets. Showing how asteroid research is increasingly collaborative, Peebles's Asteroids provides insights into the evolution of scientific ideas and the ebb and flow of scientific debate.

Customer Reviews:

Excellent book for those interested in the topic.......2002-02-01

Once upon a time, asteroids were "the vermin of the skies," as Peebles indicates. However, with the success of the NEAR mission and with concerns over the cataclysmic effects of asteroid impacts making their way even into popular culture, they are of great interest today.

The book lives up to the title, providing a very brief background on the birth of modern astronomy with Kepler and Galileo before getting to the discovery of the first asteroids. The first clue was the large gap between Mars and Jupiter, where astronomers in the 1700s began looking for a missing planet. By early in the next century, they'd found several, though they were all too small. And by the early 1900s, astronomers were getting a little tired of them, there were so many (about 2,000).

Skipping up to modern times, we now have dedicated instruments that are all but swamping the system with findings: The Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR) project, using automated techniques, found over 25,000 new asteroids in less than two years.

Peebles also focuses on different categories of asteroids, since not all are found between Earth and Mars: some approach the Earth (sometimes unnervingly closely), while others, in the Kuiper Belt, are beyond the orbit of Neptune. The discovery of each of these classes is described in separate chapters as well as, when appropriate, the theory behind the formation of each and how it was developed.

Two chapters serve as something of footnotes, one on the different sources of asteroid names (dead astronomers, Greek mythology, places, etc.), and the other on the controversy in San Diego over streetlighting. The latter seems somewhat out-of-place in this book, though the story is worth telling: basically, there was a great fight over whether the city should install streetlights with a low impact on the nearby Palomar Observatory or a higher impact. The former were disliked by some due to their orangish, unflattering lighting. To make a long story short, the astronomers win in the short-run but lose in the long-run as a new administration comes in and, at significant expense, votes to install the high-impact lighting. Peebles does not describe the resulting effects at Mt. Palomar, which is a great absence from the book and effectively undercuts much of his argument.

The final chapters cover the potential for asteroid impacts, the discovery of Shoemaker-Levy 9 and its subsequent impact on Jupiter, and the possibility of defending against impacts.

Some minor goofs: Minor Planet Center director Brian Marsden (one of the most significant figures in modern solar system astronomy) is referred to as "Bruce Marsden" once, and the NASA administrator during the Challenger disaster, James Beggs, is consistently referred to as "Biggs."

My only other criticism is that the recounting gets a little tedious at times: asteroid X is discovered, then asteroid Y, then asteroid Z, and so on. But that would be a little hard to avoid in this sort of history, and Peebles manages to provide enough background, covering theory, techniques, and historical circumstances, to stay out of that rut most of the time.

It's an excellent book for those interested in the topic.

Worthwhile despite a quirky complaint..........2001-07-29

An outstanding introductory and reference work on the current thinking behind the asteroid phenomenon, including the controversies over naming, geological studies etc. Covers in some depth the main periods of asteroid discovery, from visual to photographic to automated. Also deals briefly with issues of asteroid origin; a very interesting discussion of the analysis of "groups" of asteroids, identified by similarities in their orbital elements, as well as interesting treatment of Jupiter's effects on sweeping out lanes in the asteroid belt. Excellent treatment of the NEA threat, from its inception up through the SL-9 impact.

Quirky treatment of light pollution in the middle of the book, in the context of the naming phenomenon (an asteroid was named for the city of San Diego after a light pollution ordinance was passed, but later rescinded, though the asteroid kept its name). It was an interesting discussion, and a story that deserves to be told, but didn't belong in the middle of this book.

A tribute to the asteroids and comets hunters.......2001-06-25

A very good book to anyone that desires to acquire a good glimmer about the subject of Near Earth Objects and their threat to our civilization.

It covers all aspects from technical to politics and is a real tribute to many dedicated professionals and amateurs astronomers, geologist and others various scientists which are making history in asteroid and comets hunting. It also make me disapointed to know that the Southern hemisphere, were I live, is like a blind concerning the NEOs search effort.

Only one aspect prevent me too score 5 stars: In my opinion, the too long discussion on chapter 8 about he streetlights issue of San Diego.

A wonderful start book for anyone who intend to initiate in the NEOs study.

A good history of the "vermin of the skies.".......2001-03-07

Although it's a little dry in places and could use some more illustrations and a few more photographs, the book does a decent job of introducing the reader to the history of asteroids, their discoverers, the implications for mass extinctions on earth, and the efforts being taken today to detect them and deflect them before they have a chance to make a bad impression.

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The Transits of Venus
If You're Interested, Don't Miss It
Such an exquisitely rare event... such a great book

The Transits of Venus
William Sheehan , and John Westfall
Manufacturer: Prometheus Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Venus in Transit

ASIN: 1591021758

Customer Reviews:

The Transits of Venus.......2006-08-08

William Sheehan & John Westfall
The Transits of Venus
(Prometheus Books, Amherst, NY) 2004
407 pages
ISBN 1-59102-175-8

Reviewed by Frederic Jueneman

It may be much too late for readers of this review to observe the rare transit of Venus across the disk of the Sun, which took place on June 8, 2004, unless they already had been aware of the phenomenon and made prior arrangements to view the spectacle. As it so happens, the entire transit would only be visible in much of Europe and Asia, with some of the best viewing being in--of all places--Iraq. The eastern seaboards of Asia and Australia would only see the ingress of the transit, while eastern North and South America would only see the egress. The last time this transit occurred was December 6, 1882.
But, fret not my friends, for this rare celestial alignment will occur one more time in this century on June 5-6, 2012, as the entire transit passes across the International Dateline in the mid-Pacific. It's next two appearances then won't be until December 11, 2117 and December 8, 2125.
Curiously, these transits of Venus come in doublets spaced eight years apart minus some two days (or approx. 2920 days, with the appropriate allowance for leap years). However, the long intervals in between each pair of transits alternate between 105 and 122 years. Moreover, astronomers have grouped these transits into series, and which themselves recur every 243 years. (The number `243' is interesting as it coincidentally is the retrograde rotation of Venus in days.)
But, I digress.
The story itself begins with the dilemma of parallax, an age-old problem of viewing a body from two or more positions and estimating its size and distance. The Moon was such an object that had puzzled astronomers for millennia, although in the third century BCE Aristarchus of Samos had closely estimated the Moon's size and distance based on Earth's shadow during lunar eclipses. This problem is compounded by an apparent parallax-shift of some 2° when viewed from widely separated positions on the Earth. However, it becomes even more critical when extremely small angular displacements are encountered while estimating the size and distance of other objects such as the planets and Sun, not to mention distant stars.
Kepler's Third Law states that the cube of a planet's distance from the Sun is proportional to the square of its period of revolution about the Sun. Thus, it was thought that knowing the period of revolution of Venus, an estimate of its size and distance during a transit would give an indication of our own distance from the Sun. Such Cytherean transits across the Sun can take anywhere from three to six hours, depending on the specific planetary alignments and to a great extent the geographical positions of the observers, whereas a precise timing of the crossing is critical to each observer at a given latitude and longi¬tude. Such observations would be a triumph of science over the 45 known transits of Venus over recorded history since the days of Ammisaduqua,, the penultimate king of the First Dynasty of Babylon.
In the fourth century BCE, Heraclides of Pontus, a pupil of Plato, suggested that a lot of problems would be resolved if planets as Mercury and Venus were thought as orbiting the Sun and that the earth itself rotated on its own axis, but this was swept aside as more important concerns took precedence. This idea was later taken up by Aristarchus, but rejected on religious grounds that epistemologically declared that the Earth is the center of the universe and that the planets orbit it in perfect circles. The Alexandrian astronomer Claudius Ptolemy in the second century CE carried this to a fine art. Indeed, for the sake of convenience, today's astronomers often refer to a body's deferent--average orbital figure--as circular, and we ourselves speak of the Sun's literally rising and setting, although it does no such thing.
However, by the time of Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo, it was clearly apparent to the intelligentsia that "saving the phenomena" wasn't cutting the mustard, as traditional views and pontifical hand-waving couldn't substitute for direct observation. In 1631 French astronomer Pierre Gassendi observed the transit of Mercury and hoped to see Kepler's prediction of that of Venus later the same year, except that it was over before sunrise in Paris. The first recorded observation of a partial Venus transit was carefully but hurriedly made eight years later by the 20-year-old English as¬tronomer Jeremiah Horrocks in 1639, as the next one was not due until 1761, and in so doing was able to correct the ratio between Venus' and Earth's orbits to a value still used today, The illustrious Gassendi could also have seen it from Paris, but he was otherwise occupied and had apparently lost interest.
An alternative solution to the solar parallax problem was taken up by Giovanni Cassini and the Dane Ole Rømer at the Paris observatory by way of Mars close approach to Earth in September 1672, with a second observation post manned by the Jesuit astronomer Jean Richer in Cayenne, French Guiana, on the South American coast, finding a value of some 25 arc-seconds of displacement of the planet's image against the background of stars. From this measurement the solar parallax implied a distance from the Earth to the Sun within about eight percent of to¬day's figure.
This all occurred during a period of almost global scientific revolution in the late 17th century, when it was thought that measurements of Venus transits would underscore Isaac Newton's clockwork universe and define the absolute values of the scale of our solar system--the solar parallax itself. Edmund Halley proposed that widely separated observers time the interval between transits from ingress to egress, so that the angles of observation could more accurately define the parallax. It was a suggestion that he himself would not see in his lifetime, nor that of his prediction of the comet of 1682 now bearing his name returning in 1758.
The French astronomer Joseph-Nicholas Delisle proposed an alternative method of observing the transit of 1761 over four essential moments, by noting first contact of Venus with the Sun's limb, then when it was just within the solar disk, when it was about to leave the disk again, and when it finally separated from the Sun proper. The main difficulty with this procedure was knowing one's precise longitude, a problem alleviated by the invention of the marine chronometer by John Harrison and independently by the lesser known Pierre Le Roy and Ferdinand Berthoud.
With Europe finally settling down after a series of conflicts and other political upheavals, dozens of astronomers and their retinues scattered across the globe to witness the event, most using Delisle's methodology. However, bad weather conditions, accidents, and of course politics--the Seven Years War just broke out--daunted many observers, but there were a few preciously good sightings that made the effort seem worthwhile. Moreover, the Russian astronomer Mikhail Lomonosov was the first to discover and recognize that the haze appearing around Venus as it crossed the Sun's limb was its atmospheric envelope.
It was this selfsame haziness that hampered the accurate observations of the transit, making the exact moment of crossing indistinct and error-prone, a phenomenon which cast serious doubt on the precision of parallax determination, and by inference the uncertain masses of the other planets. Further, a dark blob appeared to attach itself to the Sun's edge as the image of Venus dissociated itself during ingress and again when leaving during egress, exacerbating the difficulty of timing the transit. Ah well, there would be the upcoming transit of 1769 when they would be better prepared to adapt and mitigate such problems with improved techniques.
It didn't happen.
Preparations for the 1874 crossing by interested countries were lackadaisical in coming, despite otherwise serious planning by the astronomers, most only a few years before the event. However, new instru¬ments and techniques were involved in the mix, such as the heliometer, spectroscope, improved chronometers, telegraphy, and the advent of photography, notably collodion film and daguerreotype. And yet, with all the technological advances, the selfsame problems of clarity and sharpness remained. The photographs upon enlargement were even fuzzier than before. The uncertainties, if anything, were compounded by the advances.
According to authors, Sheehan and Westfall, the December 1882 was "the last hurrah" for the Halley and Delisle methods. Nevertheless, it was the first time that the Americas were in the spotlight since 1639, when Harvard was merely a fledgling university, having been founded just three years prior. The disappointments of 1874 left most previous contributors to the safari-like excursions less than enthusiastic, But then again, the next transit would skip the 20th century entirely, so some forty-odd voyages were dispatched to the western hemisphere for that last hurrah.
As is normally the case, newer and more revolutionary techniques were even then being forwarded that didn't rely on transit observations to ascertain solar parallax, and hence distances to the various planetary bodies, and subsequent determination of planetary masses, including that of Earth. Celestial mechanics was in its infancy, but was making such rapid inroads in these determinations to the point where transit observations would no longer be necessary or even desirable, except perhaps as recreational exercises.
One touching story from out of the 1882 event involved David Peck Todd, his wife Mabel, and Austin Dickinson, a town administrator of Amherst, Mass. It concerned an interesting ménage à trois in a so-called May-December romance between Mabel and Austin (the brother of poet Emily Dickinson). David Todd was the first to identify Phobos, the inner satellite of Mars during its opposition in 1877 (Asaph Hall is otherwise credited with the discovery of the outer moon Deimos), but Todd was actually more interested in studying Jupiter. However, he accepted the invitation to use the James Lick Observatory on Mount Hamilton in California when the American doyen Simon Newcomb declined.
This site, just over the line in the transit egress zone, wasn't considered by the Washington, DC, Transit Committee because of generally poor winter weather conditions, besides it wasn't on their list for funding anyway. So, private subsidy, at least in this case, succeeded where public funding came up deficient. The facility had procured the latest photoheliostat, and Todd managed to get 125 photos good enough for micrometric analysis out of 147 plates. They were discovered in Lick's vault just a couple of years ago still "in mint condition," and enough to make a short motion picture of the series accompanied by John Philip Sousa's Transit of Venus March.
Mabel Todd herself single-handedly collected and collated the poems and letters of Emily Dickinson, rescuing them from oblivion, who in turn wrote:
"What are stars but Asterisks.
To point a human life!"
The transits of Venus in 2004 and 2012 will no doubt be irregular but enticing prey for the computer and camera-toting eclipse hunters, who will themselves be joined by tens of millions of onlookers from all walks of life. The problems of parallax won't perturb the scientific community as once they did, and so these events will now bring to a close another interesting chapter in the history of astronomy.
It's been fun.

If You're Interested, Don't Miss It.......2004-10-11

On June 8, 2004, I got up well before dawn and made my way to the school where I teach in Westchester County, New York. I met the astronomy teacher there--I teach physics and math-- and we proceeded to watch what we could of the transit of Venus, the passage of the planet Venus across the face of the sun. It dawned cloudy but we did manage to see the last half-hour or so and we got a number of excellent photographs of the event. It was a great morning--a chance to see a very rare astronomical event. I don't think I'll ever forget it.

Because of my experience, when I saw this book I couldn't resist taking a look. Sheehan & Westfall do a very good job at explaining the science of the transit, detailing views of the transit in maps & photographs, and in going through the history of the attempts at viewing and measuring the transit. Particularly interesting is their discussions of using the transit to measure the earth-sun distance and the number of voyages of exploration undertaken (including Captain Cook's) whose primary purpose was to find a good vantage from which to observe the transit.

Transits of Venus come in pairs separated by approximately 8 years. These pairs are then separated from each other by better than 100 years. Before 2004, the last transit was in 1882. After the transit of 2012, the next won't occur until 2117. Granted, this book is not going to hold any interest to anyone who is not interested in astronomy. But if observing the skies is something that fascinates you as it does me, read this book. Then put it on a shelf and pull it out again in 2012. Prepare yourself for the next transit because if you miss it next time, you won't get another chance. You'll have to leave the book for your grandchildren.

Such an exquisitely rare event... such a great book.......2004-04-26

William Sheehan is one of very few authors whose books I purchase as soon as they're published. Though not an historian of astronomy by profession, he is among the elite few who have contributed significantly to popular writings in that genre in the last 15 years or so. In taking on the topic of the transits of Venus, Sheehan, joined in this endeavor by John Westfall, has produced a magnificent volume that any amateur historian of astronomy will surely want to read.

As with all Sheehan efforts, Transits is meticulously researched and detailed, yet written in a lively and conversational tone that is a pleasure to read. Here will be found excellent scientific background: the nature of transits, the importance of transit observations in unlocking the value of the astronomical unit, etc. More importantly, to me, is the rich treatment of the history of transit observations. From Kepler's Rudolphine tables, where the first transits of Venus were accurately predicted, to the life and times of Jeremiah Horrocks, the short-lived English astronomer who first successfully observed one in 1639, to the massive international efforts of the 18th and 19th centuries, this work is filled with detail, photos, diagrams, and immensely satisfying story-telling. Here's an example of the detail and rich prose:

"The long wait for a transit of Venus finally ended at 3:06:22.3 PM Honolulu mean time, December 8 1874, when George Tupman became the first person in 105 years to see a transit of Venus. He had two advantages that gave him a head start: the Hawaiian stations were the closest in the world to the Delislean point of earliest ingress: and he was observing with a spectroscope that allowed him to spot Venus against the sun's inner atmosphere, the chromosphere, a full 39 seconds before it touched the visible solar limb."

Sheehan and Westfall's orientation is so decidedly historical that they make a surprising omission: There is no discussion of the reason for the curious spacing of Venus transits: a pair 8 years apart, followed by a gap of either 105 or 122 years, and then another pair 8 years apart. Perhaps this discussion, about which I think many readers would be curious, was omitted because it can be somewhat technical. More likely, they simply had to make some decisions on what to include and not include based on their particular slant.

At any rate, such an omission is more than balanced by what Sheehan and Westfall do include. I was overjoyed to read such exquisite detail about the observational and photographic instruments used to observe and measure the transits of 1874 and 1882. As far as I know, Sheehan and Westfall are the first authors to offer such thorough coverage in a popular work. There are also many photographs and drawings reproduced from this pair of transits, many more than I have ever seen in print before.

Book Description

Here is an informative, up-to-date and well-illustrated guide to planetary observations for amateurs. After chapters on the solar system and the celestial sphere, the text explains how to choose, test and use a telescope with various accessories and how to make observations and record results. For each planet and the asteroids, Price gives details of observational techniques, together with suggestions for how to make contributions of sound astronomical value. From a general description and detailed observational history of each planet, readers learn how to anticipate what they should see and assess their own observations. New to this edition is a chapter on planetary photography that includes the revolutionary use of videography, charge coupled devices and video-assisted drawing. Another new feature is a section on the Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud. Other chapters on making maps and planispheres and on photoelectric photometry round out the book's up-to-date treatment, making this indispensable reading for both casual and serious observer alike.

Customer Reviews:

The Intro may have skewed my opinion...........2003-06-11

Unlike the other reviews, I thought the book was not that technical at all. The book at first seemed to dedicate too many pages to the same topics you find in every beginner astro book, telescope types, eyepiece types, etc... The information on the planets were not as detailed as I had hoped (sans Saturn). Most of this information and much more can be found on the Web. I did think the chapter on the minor planets was worth the read.

I must admit, my opinion of this book may have been heavily skewed because I "accidentally" read the introduction. In there, Fred Price compares planetary astronomers to real "observers" and anyone who observes deep-sky objects to "sightseers".

Hmmm... the AAVSO might differ with that opinion, as would a number of organizations who do deep sky research. Maybe I was just too sensitive, but the introduction did rub me the wrong way. It is true, I do often "sight see" deep sky objects for the challenge of seeing something I had not seen and to improve my "observing eye" (ability to see detail with your eyes). I do not care what Dr. Price thinks of me in doing so. However, I know many people who think the opposite way, that observing the planets is a dull and boring task that already much is known about. I think both sides are wrong to be so damned elitist about it.

Besides that, it is a good book :-)

A bit too advanced for me.......2003-04-09

I was surprised by the technical flavor of this book, as I expected (wrongly, it turned out) a beginner to mid-level observation handbook which I could take out with me on my observation trips.

The book is over 400 pages long, all written in 10 point Times font. There are very little illustrations and photo, and they are all in black and white. So it looks like a college science textbook and is very challenging visually.

Each of the sections on each planet have the same subsections such as "History of Observation" (mostly useless to me), "Observing [Jupiter, etc.]" and "Space craft Obsevation of [Jupiter, etc.]"

It also seems that to see most of the stuff described in this book, you need to have a telescope that is at least 8 inches, so that is out of my league.

However, in fairness, I know that this is a very compresensive book on the subject, and answers all possible questions that one may have on observing the planets.

But as I said, this book is more suitable for the advanced amateur Astronomer.

An extensive exposition of the Solar System.......2001-08-09

This terrific book is an illustrated and textual exposition of the Solar System - a guided tour of the planets and their characteristics - from the transients of Mercury to eclipses and occultations of Pluto and Charon. Except for a few singular and minor omissions, The Planet Observer's Handbook qualifies as one of the best works on the Solar System to date. In fact we've included it on the Belmont Society's "Required Reading List" for the amateur astronomer.

Advanced amateurs may want to skim through the first chapters - dealing with telescope types, accessories, components of the celestial sphere, and introductory terminology. There are however, some eye-catching moments for jaded readers, like the apodizing (antidifraction) screen, a simple homemade device to limit diffraction and the effects of atmospheric turbulence while not adversely affecting image contrast or quality (it's actually an old trick, but not that well known).

This book was not intended to be a "post card catalog" of pretty pictures. Thus there are no contemporary photographs such as pictures of Venus from the HST, or a Cassinni fly-by image of Io against the festooned background of Jupiter. There are however, many pertinent photos and illustrations to serve historic interest and to offer educational impact. We find this arrangement to be perfectly suitable and appropriate.

Some may be surprised and/or a little disappointed that our moon is not included here. But keep in mind that the moon is a subject unto itself, and thus deserves a work of a separate magnitude - and there are several available.

There are some disappointments: Aside from some basic illustrations for the purpose of scale, this work is notably lacking in accurate renditions of the orbital planes of major satellites. Also, in light of various discussions about several other oddities, there is virtually none (or even any speculation) about the drastic tilt of Uranus. We find this to be curiously conspicuous, as it's one of the most striking anomalies in the Solar System.

There is skillful discussion of little-known and much-neglected Solar System components, like the Kuiper Belt and the Oort Cloud, and some insightful speculation of such things as their respective associations with short and long term comets. There is also some discussion of an almost ubiquitous "Planet-X", the existence of which is argued to this day as being the cause for Neptunian perturbations. This parallels some speculation (or at least the opinion) that Pluto and Charon are in fact not the ninth planet and its moon, but simply major lost-in-space chunks of accreted or captured "debris".

We found the brief presentation and subsequent explanation of Bode's Law to be the best we have seen offered in a non-college level text. This intriguing mathematical statement is so staggeringly significant, (yet surprisingly simple) that it boggles the mind.

Finally, there is considerable discussion of the data and knowledge that can be contributed by amateur astronomers. This discussion is a clever form of interactive "provocation" and is to be applauded. Author Price emphatically encourages dedicated amateurs to take up the gauntlet, and involve themselves in observational contributions to the sciences, and he makes a fair attempt at describing how to accomplish it, including addresses of where to send your observations and data. However, you shouldn't feel bad if you don't have the time or the inclination to engage in such ambitious activities.

The average amateur astronomer who is even mildly interested in the Solar System will benefit greatly from this work, and will likely gain a great deal of knowledge and insight about the countless and innumerable objects that circle the Sun.

Highly recommended.

A must-have for the dedicated planet observer!.......2001-02-13

This book is a good read for the general amateur astronomer and a required text for the dedicated planet observer. I fall in the "general amateur" category and do not have the patience nor inclination to devote my observing time to sketching the planets night after night. Yet I enjoyed the book anyway and it gave me a sound appreciation for the dynamic nature of our neighbors in the solar system as well as the numerous ways in which the serious amateur can contribute to the science.

This book is replete with details on the numerous features visible on the planets through amateur telescopes. It also gives advice on what type of telescope to use and what magnifications to employ. Basic scientific data on each planet (rotation rate, mass, distance, etc.) is included for reference as well as a lengthy history of observation for each planet, but the emphasis of this book is on *amateur observation*, as implied by the title. You won't find theories on Saturn's cloud decks or the origins of Mars' surface features. What you will find are detailed tips and advice on how to look for and draw the spokes in Saturn's rings, festoons between Jupiter's cloud belts, the "purple haze" on Mars, filters to employ, etc.

A necessary work at a great price for the hardcore planet observer! For the casual amateur, a bit expensive and over-the-top but still a useful addition to the library. I give it five stars because it adheres to its stated purpose faithfully and with style.

An excellent guide to practical planetary observations........1998-09-14

Fred Price has produced a wonderful guide to the inquisitive amateur astronomer who wants to undertake solar system observations. The book provides a very thorough and useful discussion of the solar system and "celestial sphere," and progresses into a fairly standard, but very informative, discussion about telescopes and atmospheric conditions. The meat of the book assigns one chapter to each planet; for each planet the author provides the essential orbital characteristics, physical properties, etc., and an enlightening relation of the history of each planet's observations. This history not only prepares the observer for what to expect to see at the eyepiece, but allows him to place the quality of his observations in historical context. Finally, Dr. Price provides suggestions of good science which a dedicated and moderately well-equipped amateur can perform, contributing usefully to human knowledge of the solar system. I found this book quite informative, and found that it has enriched my observing experience at the telescope.

Mars: Uncovering the Secrets of the Red Planet

Average customer rating:

A great reference book.
Mars by Raeburn
In Limbo...
OUT OF THIS WORLD
Wonderful introduction to our cold and dry neighbor

Mars: Uncovering the Secrets of the Red Planet
Paul Raeburn
Manufacturer: National Geographic
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Astronomy | Astronomy | Science | Subjects | Books

Comets, Meteors & Asteroids | Astronomy | Science | Subjects | Books

Mars | Astronomy | Science | Subjects | Books

Solar System | Astronomy | Science | Subjects | Books

General | Science | Subjects | Books

History of Science | History & Philosophy | Science | Subjects | Books

ASIN: 0792276140
Release Date: 2000-04-15

Amazon.com

On Mars the sky is pink, the polar caps are made of dry ice, the volcanoes are 17 miles high, and there is a little rock named Lozenge. Paul Raeburn's new book about Mars is full of fun facts like these. Published by the National Geographic Society, this volume also features 125 striking photographs of the planet's surface, many of them from the 1997 Pathfinder mission. A pair of 3-D glasses are tucked into the cover so that the foldout "Marscape" in the middle of the book practically leaps off the page. Raeburn chronicles the history of humankind's fascination with Mars, presenting the theories of ancient astronomers and the fantasies spun by science fiction writers. When one 19th-century scientist thought he spotted canals on the surface of the planet, many people jumped to the conclusion that there was water on Mars and that there must be life on the planet. This hopeful idea flourished for many decades, until the first pictures from the Mariner expedition of 1965 revealed that the planet is arid and pocked with craters like Earth's own moon. The Viking and Pathfinder missions gathered more data about the planet, photographing its volcanoes and enormous canyons, offering glimmers of hope to the life-on-Mars contingent. Raeburn describes each Mars mission, profiles several of the major players in Mars research, and discusses future exploration of the planet. Raeburn's account of human exploration of the red planet is fascinating, but the pictures are the best thing about this book. Lozenge isn't much to look at, but that 17-mile-high volcano is, and so is the rest of the fourth planet's undulating, dusty terrain. --Jill Marquis

Book Description

Unimaginably distant, and yet at the same time the most Earthlike of the planets, Mars has exerted a powerful pull on the human imagination for thousands of years. It mesmerized the millions who watched as the small robot known as Sojourner explored its faraway surface from July to September 1997.

Now, with a definitive book on this compelling subject, National Geographic presents a state-of-the-art report on the planet itself, the technology that allows us to explore it, and the prospects for further exciting discoveries. Highlighted by an astonishing collection of more than 125 full-color photographs, Mars includes a stunning, 3-dimensional, 8-page panoramic gatefold with images that capture the genuine wonder of discovery at the Pathfinder landing site.

Customer Reviews:

A great reference book........2007-01-02

Mars: Uncovering the Secrets of the Red Planet, by Paul Raeburn and introduction and commentary by Mars Pathfinder project scientist Matt Golombek, is a book filled with a massive amount of detailed information. Occasionally, the information was overwhelming. Although the author did an excellent job at mixing the more technical information with lighter information and absolutely amazing photos, the book was still confusing at times.
The book begins by introducing some of the famous astronomers of history. It addresses what Galileo, Copernicus, Kepler, Aristarchus, and Ptolemy believed about Mars. The book also has pictures illustrating what mankind has thought of Mars and Martians from a stereotypical view. Later the author focuses on the time during which Russia and America raced to make their space program the best in the world. You may or may not be familiar with this period in history (this information is covered in the book) but the competition was fierce. The writer focuses on the attempts to launch probes into space, the monetary issues that arose, and the problems each side faced in their quest to eventually land on the moon. Raeburn then discusses the American Mariner, Viking and Pathfinder missions to Mars. He describes the details of the launches, the successes, the failures, and the purposes of the missions. He then explains the interest in going to Mars, the debate over life on Mars, and gives information about the similarities between Earth, and the red planet.
I felt this book was a challenging read. It was informative and had many quotes from famous scientists such as Dr. Robert Manning and Dr. McKay. The photographs in this book were fantastic; they were detailed and visually impressive. This was the most informative book about Mars I have ever read by a long shot, and although I wouldn't recommend it for light reading, it is an excellent reference book. I feel an adult would appreciate the book more than I did.

Mars by Raeburn.......2003-10-19

This work has spectacular pictures of the Martian surface
developed from recent expeditions. The shots of the Valles
Marineris are panoramic as is the Orphir plateau surface.
The planet has a heavily cratered terrain with many
photo shots of the Southern Polar Cap consisting of water and
CO 2. This book would be a treasure chest for a school class
project in science. It is highly recommended for a young
audience or for curious elders and other red planet enthusiasts. The detailed descriptions of the planet add
significantly to the overall presentation. The book is a
worthy addition to any science library.

In Limbo..........2001-11-06

This book can't decide if it is a coffee table picture book or something more serious and suffers as a consequence as it is not particularly good at either. I suppose it might be a nice, very non-technical introduction to the study of Mars for the very non-technical. If you are looking for a nice picture book (which I was) I think you'll find this falls a little short. I was hoping for something analagous to the NGS book, Orbit, and I did not get it.

OUT OF THIS WORLD.......2001-09-07

AN EXCELLENT COLLECTION OF PHOTOS AND INFO. THIS BOOK IS AWESOME FOR THE PERSON WHO LOVES SCIENCE AND SPACE. HISTORY, FACTS, OPINIONS AND A WHOLE LOT MORE MAKE THIS BOOK A WINNER. WELL WORTH OWNING FOR YEARS TO COME.
A MUST FOR SPACE BUFFS.

Wonderful introduction to our cold and dry neighbor.......2001-08-18

This outstanding book is published by National Geographic and it shows! Enough colorful pictures to qualify as a coffee table book but plenty of interesting text to work through as well. The book is written for the "educated layman", not too technical but at the same time assuming a basic understanding of science. The ratio of text to pictures is similar to the National Geographic magazine, perhaps a bit heavier on the text.

Raeburn begins with a summary of the different beliefs held about Mars before the spacecraft era, including the widely held one initiated by Lowell about canals constructed by intelligent Martians. Raeburn spends the bulk of the book taking us through NASA's various missions to Mars: Mariner, Viking, Pathfinder, and Global Surveyor. The book was published in 1998 and hence only provides a "preview" of the Global Surveyor findings. Today, of course, we have a complete global map of Mars in astonishing detail.

Also, Raeburn optimistically looks forward to NASA's continuing "faster, cheaper, better" program of Mars exploration. We already know that the orbiter and polar lander failed, so let's hope that the craft to be launched this year fare better. Raeburn also notes that in 2005 a craft will be launched that should bring rocks from Mars back to Earth!

Overall, definitely worth the price of entry for the pictures alone. There are even some neat 3-D pictures inside and the book provides 3-D glasses!

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