Astronomical Discoveries You Can Make, Too!
Astronomical Discoveries You Can Make, Too!

Author: Robert K. Buchheim

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2015-05-12

Total Pages: 557

ISBN-13: 3319156608

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You too can follow in the steps of the great astronomers such as Hipparchus, Galileo, Kepler and Hubble, who all contributed so much to our modern understanding of the cosmos. This book gives the student or amateur astronomer the following tools to replicate some of these seminal observations from their own homes: With your own eyes: Use your own observations and measurements to discover and confirm the phenomena of the seasons, the analemma and the equation of time, the logic behind celestial coordinates, and even the precession of the equinoxes. With a consumer-grade digital camera: Record the changing brightness of an eclipsing binary star and show that a pulsating star changes color as it brightens and dims. Add an inexpensive diffraction grating to your camera and see the variety of spectral features in the stars, and demonstrate that the Sun’s spectrum is similar to one particular type of stellar spectrum. With a backyard telescope: Add a CCD imager and you can measure the scale of the Solar System and the distance to a nearby star. You could even measure the distance to another galaxy and observe the cosmological redshift of the expanding universe. Astronomical Discoveries You Can Make, Too! doesn’t just tell you about the development of astronomy; it shows you how to discover for yourself the essential features of the universe.

Atlas of Astronomical Discoveries
Atlas of Astronomical Discoveries

Author: Govert Schilling

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2011-04-11

Total Pages: 244

ISBN-13: 1441978119

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Offers a unique combination of informative text, magnificent illustrations and stylish design Examines the 100 most important discoveries since the invention of the telescope Features spectacular photographs, taken with the largest telescopes on Earth and in space, that portray distant corners of the universe Author Govert Schilling is a renowned astronomy journalist and science communicator In his Atlas of Astronomical Discoveries, astronomy journalist Govert Schilling tells the story of 400 years of telescopic astronomy. He looks at the 100 most important discoveries since the invention of the telescope. Doing what Schilling does best, he takes the reader on an adventure through both space and time. Photographs and amazing pictures line the pages of this book, offering the reader an escape from this world and an invitation to a world far beyond what the unaided human eye can detect.

Cosmic Discoveries
Cosmic Discoveries

Author: David H. Levy

Publisher: Prometheus Books

Published: 2010-09-09

Total Pages: 232

ISBN-13: 161592566X

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For many millennia the starry night sky has been a source of wonder and awe to men and women who have tried to unravel the mystery of the billion distant lights that fill the heavens after dark. The story of the great discoverers who succeeded in explaining part of the mystery is told here with the joy and infectious enthusiasm that only a fellow discoverer can convey. David Levy, codiscoverer of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9, with his wife, Wendee Wallach-Levy, evokes that marvelous moment of Eureka! as he masterfully relates each story. He gives the reader a glimpse of the enthralling adventure of cosmic discovery through stories of the most famous and brilliant astronomers. Beyond their personal accomplishments, these scientists expanded all of humanity's understanding of the universe and our place within it.For example, Galileo's breathtaking discovery of the moons of Jupiter, new worlds that refused to orbit the sun, challenged the whole doctrine of the earth being the center of the universe. With the start of the 20th century, Shapley pushed back the envelope that had been opened by Galileo by proving that the center of our galaxy is very far beyond our own sun. And Hubble showed that even our galaxy is but a tiny part of a universe that is rapidly expanding. In describing these milestones of science, Levy reveals his own spirited conversations with such luminaries of the imagination as the discoverer of the planet Pluto, Clyde Tombaugh, and one of the world's greatest science fiction writers, Sir Arthur C. Clarke.Through Levy's unique perspective on cosmic discovery, he is able to connect his own personal life story with that of astronomers of the past and by extension with the history of the whole universe. As the codiscoverer of the spectacular comet that crashed into Jupiter, Levy formulated a whole new range of exciting questions about the universe: Do comets serve to transport the elements of life from one planet to the next? What is the evidence that a large comet once hit the earth? Will the earth someday be in danger of colliding with another such comet and will we have the technology to stop it?This fascinating book will excite any of us who have stared at the night sky in awe and amazement.David Levy and Wendee Wallach-Levy (Vail, AZ) are continuing their ongoing search for new comets. David Levy is the president of the Jarnac Observatory, science editor for PARADE magazine, a contributing editor to Sky and Telescope and Sky News magazines, and the author of Starry Nights, The Quest for Comets, and Impact Jupiter, among other books.

From Geocentric to Heliocentric: How Discoveries Are Made
From Geocentric to Heliocentric: How Discoveries Are Made

Author: Yunbao Ge (葛云保)

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2022-01-25

Total Pages: 184

ISBN-13: 9811677794

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Has anyone ever seen with their own eyes that the Earth goes around the sun? Even to this day, no one has. However, 500 and even 2000 years ago, some astronomers managed to point out that this is the case. At that time, people’s range of activities was strictly confined, the technology and tools used were extremely primitive, and many of the mathematical methods used today had not been developed. How did those astronomers make and verify this discovery? This book explains this exciting demonstration process. It enables anyone with a basic junior-high-school knowledge of geometry and a certain degree of spatial imagination to understand this and other interesting discoveries in the solar system. By demonstrating this interesting process, the book not only satisfies readers' curiosity using the simplest mathematics, but also inspires them to explore the new and unknown world.

Big Data in Astronomy
Big Data in Astronomy

Author: Linghe Kong

Publisher: Elsevier

Published: 2020-06-13

Total Pages: 440

ISBN-13: 012819085X

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Big Data in Radio Astronomy: Scientific Data Processing for Advanced Radio Telescopes provides the latest research developments in big data methods and techniques for radio astronomy. Providing examples from such projects as the Square Kilometer Array (SKA), the world’s largest radio telescope that generates over an Exabyte of data every day, the book offers solutions for coping with the challenges and opportunities presented by the exponential growth of astronomical data. Presenting state-of-the-art results and research, this book is a timely reference for both practitioners and researchers working in radio astronomy, as well as students looking for a basic understanding of big data in astronomy. Bridges the gap between radio astronomy and computer science Includes coverage of the observation lifecycle as well as data collection, processing and analysis Presents state-of-the-art research and techniques in big data related to radio astronomy Utilizes real-world examples, such as Square Kilometer Array (SKA) and Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST)

The Decade of Discovery in Astronomy and Astrophysics
The Decade of Discovery in Astronomy and Astrophysics

Author: National Research Council

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 1991-02-01

Total Pages: 221

ISBN-13: 0309043816

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Astronomers and astrophysicists are making revolutionary advances in our understanding of planets, stars, galaxies, and even the structure of the universe itself. The Decade of Discovery presents a survey of this exciting field of science and offers a prioritized agenda for space- and ground-based research into the twenty-first century. The book presents specific recommendations, programs, and expenditure levels to meet the needs of the astronomy and astrophysics communities. Accessible to the interested lay reader, the book explores: The technological investments needed for instruments that will be built in the next century. The importance of the computer revolution to all aspects of astronomical research. The potential usefulness of the moon as an observatory site. Policy issues relevant to the funding of astronomy and the execution of astronomical projects. The Decade of Discovery will prove valuable to science policymakers, research administrators, scientists, and students in the physical sciences, and interested lay readers.

Astronomy and Astrophysics in the New Millennium
Astronomy and Astrophysics in the New Millennium

Author: National Research Council

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 2002-02-07

Total Pages: 401

ISBN-13: 0309070376

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In preparing the report, Astronomy and Astrophysics in the New Millenium , the AASC made use of a series of panel reports that address various aspects of ground- and space-based astronomy and astrophysics. These reports provide in-depth technical detail. Astronomy and Astrophysics in the New Millenium: An Overview summarizes the science goals and recommended initiatives in a short, richly illustrated, non-technical booklet.

The Glass Universe
The Glass Universe

Author: Dava Sobel

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2016-12-06

Total Pages: 336

ISBN-13: 069814869X

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From #1 New York Times bestselling author Dava Sobel, the "inspiring" (People), little-known true story of women's landmark contributions to astronomy A New York Times Book Review Notable Book of 2017 Named one of the best books of the year by NPR, The Economist, Smithsonian, Nature, and NPR's Science Friday Nominated for the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award "A joy to read.” —The Wall Street Journal In the mid-nineteenth century, the Harvard College Observatory began employing women as calculators, or “human computers,” to interpret the observations their male counterparts made via telescope each night. At the outset this group included the wives, sisters, and daughters of the resident astronomers, but soon the female corps included graduates of the new women's colleges—Vassar, Wellesley, and Smith. As photography transformed the practice of astronomy, the ladies turned from computation to studying the stars captured nightly on glass photographic plates. The “glass universe” of half a million plates that Harvard amassed over the ensuing decades—through the generous support of Mrs. Anna Palmer Draper, the widow of a pioneer in stellar photography—enabled the women to make extraordinary discoveries that attracted worldwide acclaim. They helped discern what stars were made of, divided the stars into meaningful categories for further research, and found a way to measure distances across space by starlight. Their ranks included Williamina Fleming, a Scottish woman originally hired as a maid who went on to identify ten novae and more than three hundred variable stars; Annie Jump Cannon, who designed a stellar classification system that was adopted by astronomers the world over and is still in use; and Dr. Cecilia Helena Payne, who in 1956 became the first ever woman professor of astronomy at Harvard—and Harvard’s first female department chair. Elegantly written and enriched by excerpts from letters, diaries, and memoirs, The Glass Universe is the hidden history of the women whose contributions to the burgeoning field of astronomy forever changed our understanding of the stars and our place in the universe.