Almost every practical astronomer eventually aspires to have a fixed, permanent observatory for his or her telescope. A roll-off roof or dome observatory is the answer for the most popular home observatory design. Building a Roll-Off or Dome Observatory will help you decide whether to embark on the venture and will certainly increase your enthusiasm for the project.The author, both an amateur astronomer and a professional landscape architect, answers many of the common questions as...

Almost every amateur astronomer who has taken the pursuit to its second level aspires to a fixed, permanent housing for his telescope, permitting its rapid and comfortable use avoiding hours of setting-up time for each observing session. A roll-off roof observatory is the simplest and by far the most popular observatory design for today’s practical astronomers.Building a Roll-off Roof Observatory is unique, covering all aspects of designing a roll-off roof observatory: planning the...

A step-by-step guide to knowing the night sky. Find northern hemisphere constellations easily by starting small and expanding your knowledge. This guide is meant to be taken outside! Read the instructions, and follow along with the stars. The only equipment necessary: your eyes and a clear night. Each lesson builds on knowledge learned in previous lessons, and students of the stars will become comfortable and confident in their ability to identify northern hemisphere conste...

"Refreshing . . . A penetrating analysis of the assumptions that underlie SETI and the entire enterprise of searching for life beyond Earth." —Chris McKay, NatureFifty years ago, a young astronomer named Frank Drake first pointed a radio telescope at nearby stars in the hope of picking up a signal from an alien civilization. Thus began one of the boldest scientific projects in history, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). After a half-centur...

Space exploration is incredibly popular right now with adults and children alike, every day brings news about discoveries in our solar system and beyond. Kids in particular are always excited by all things space related. A picture book is the perfect gift for kids because it brings the excitement and wonder of our solar system closer in bright colorful detail. It lets them learn facts about the planets and moons in a friendly format that they can come back to again and again, and the pictu...

What is time? The 5th-century philosopher St Augustine famously said that he knew what time was, so long as no one asked him.Is time a fourth dimension similar to space or does it flow in some sense? And if it flows, does it make sense to say how fast? Does the future exist? Is time travel possible? Why does time seem to pass in only one direction?These questions and others are among the deepest and most subtle that one can ask, but Introducing Time ...

This magnificent atlas contains the most attractive and interesting double and multiple stars for viewing with binoculars and telescopes. It is a must-have for stargazers who want to explore these fascinating objects. The first modern star atlas devoted to double and multiple stars, it plots over 2000 selected pairs of stars, each labeled with discoverer, catalog, and/or observatory designations. A superb introduction to this important class of celestial objects, it is spiral bound and pri...

Why Earth’s life-friendly climate makes it exceptional-and what that means for the likelihood of finding intelligent extraterrestrial lifeWe have long fantasized about finding life on planets other than our own. Yet even as we become aware of the vast expanses beyond our solar system, it remains clear that Earth is exceptional. The question is: why? In Lucky Planet, astrobiologist David Waltham argues that Earth’s climate stability is what makes it uniquel...

As space ventures have become more numerous, leading scientists and theorists have offered ways of building a living habitat in a hostile environment, taking an ‘ecosystems’ view of space colonization. The contributors to this volume take a radical multi-disciplinary view of the challenge of human space colonization through the ongoing project Persephone. This book fundamentally challenges prevalent ideas about sustainability and proposes a new approach to resource austerity and conservati...

Offers a unique combination of informative text, magnificent illustrations and stylish designExamines the 100 most important discoveries since the invention of the telescopeFeatures spectacular photographs, taken with the largest telescopes on Earth and in space, that portray distant corners of the universeAuthor Govert Schilling is a renowned astronomy journalist and science communicatorIn his Atlas of Astronomical Discoveries, a...

No longer are heavy, sturdy, expensive mounts and tripods required to photograph deep space. With today's advances in technology, all that is required is an entry-DSLR and an entry level GoTo telescope. Here is all of the information needed to start photographing the night sky without buying expensive tracking mounts. By using multiple short exposures and combining them with mostly ‘freeware’ computer programs, the effect of image rotation can be minimized to a point where it is undetectab...

This collection of science fiction writings by Jayant V. Narlikar offers readers a unique glimpse into the world-famous Indian astrophysicist’s vivid and highly imaginative concepts and stories.The fictional material comprises a witty short story ("The rare idol of Ganesha") that cleverly explores the possible consequences of a mirror-symmetric individual in the context of cricket test match performances, as well as the fast-paced, gripping science fiction thriller "The return of V...