Rare Astronomical Sights and Sounds

Rare Astronomical Sights and Sounds

Author: Jonathan Powell

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2018-09-17

Total Pages: 220

ISBN-13: 3319977016

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​The universe contains many unusual sights and sounds, most of which are either very difficult to witness or simply go unnoticed. With the right tools, time, and location, some of the often talked about but seldom seen and heard gems in our skies can finally be observed. This book introduces readers to the rare and ephemeral happenings above our heads. It offers a crash course in astronomical history, detailing the observations, assumptions, and inventions of different cultures over time as they turned their studies to the stars. Using this as a baseline to redefine truly "rare" occurrences, Jonathan Powell then provides modern-day astronomers at all levels with pointers for what they can witness and when. From phenomena as old and far-off as a supernova witnessed a thousand years ago, and as recent and nearby as Sputnik's famous beeping, this book covers everything that one must know to see, hear, and appreciate the astronomical events happening around us.


Rare Astronomical Sights and Sounds

Rare Astronomical Sights and Sounds

Author: Jonathan Powell

Publisher:

Published: 2018

Total Pages: 219

ISBN-13: 9783319977027

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The universe contains many unusual sights and sounds, most of which are either very difficult to witness or simply go unnoticed. With the right tools, time, and location, some of the often talked about but seldom seen and heard gems in our skies can finally be observed. This book introduces readers to the rare and ephemeral happenings above our heads. It offers a crash course in astronomical history, detailing the observations, assumptions, and inventions of different cultures over time as they turned their studies to the stars. Using this as a baseline to redefine truly "rare" occurrences, Jonathan Powell then provides modern-day astronomers at all levels with pointers for what they can witness and when. From phenomena as old and far-off as a supernova witnessed a thousand years ago, and as recent and nearby as Sputnik's famous beeping, this book covers everything that one must know to see, hear, and appreciate the astronomical events happening around us.


More Than Just Memories

More Than Just Memories

Author: Tony Ward

Publisher: Troubador Publishing Ltd

Published: 2024-10-28

Total Pages: 110

ISBN-13: 1836286473

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Rites of passage, troubled voices, love and loss, nature, heroes, war, environmental crises. Tony Ward’s poems invite us to relive the experiences, triumphs, and tragedies that waymark our lives and that of our planet. This is a collection of two halves. Thirty-one of the poems have been previously published in various forms, broadcast on local radio, appeared on film, or won prizes, the other thirty are new. Among other sources, Tony has drawn upon his popular Poetry+ series for the lifestyle magazine Sussex Life. Then, following his wife’s diagnosis of Alzheimer’s Disease, Tony began writing words of comfort during the pandemic lockdowns for the Alzheimer’s Society social media. Informative, entertaining, thought provoking, humorous, verse traditional and freestyle, and above all easily understood. This is a collection to be savoured. You may even recognise yourself reflected at times. If you find some modern poetry hard going, then this is the book for you. Like the much-loved long-running “Classics for Pleasure” record label, this is “Poetry for Pleasure”, a collection to dip into whatever your mood. Go for it!


Yearbook of Astronomy 2025

Yearbook of Astronomy 2025

Author: Brian Jones

Publisher: White Owl

Published: 2024-10-16

Total Pages: 370

ISBN-13: 1036115186

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"Overall, this is a wonderful work written to be accessible to people with more than a passing interest in astronomy." — Booklist on the 2023 edition of Yearbook of Astronomy Maintaining its appealing style and presentation, the Yearbook of Astronomy 2025 contains comprehensive jargon-free monthly sky notes and an authoritative set of sky charts to enable backyard astronomers and sky gazers everywhere to plan their viewing of the year’s eclipses, comets, meteor showers and minor planets as well as detailing the phases of the Moon and visibility and locations of the planets throughout the year. To supplement all this is a variety of entertaining and informative articles, a feature for which the Yearbook of Astronomy is known. Presenting the reader with information on a wide range of topics, the articles for the 2025 edition include, among others, Recent Advances in Astronomy; Recent Advances in Solar System Exploration; Skies over Ancient America: Mystical Mounds and Landmarks of the Prehistoric Americas; Astrophysicist Cecilia Helena Payne and Professor H. N. Russell; The Astronomers’ Stars: The Terrible Twos; Eta Carinae: A Chance Encounter and Journey of Discovery; Saturn at its Equinox: A History of Ring-Plane Crossings from 1612 to 2025; A History of Observatory Designs: Before the Telescope; Signals from the Magnetosphere; How to Read a Scientific Paper; and Small Stars. This iconic publication made its first appearance way back in 1962, shortly after the dawning of the Space Age. Now well into its seventh decade of production, the Yearbook continues to be essential reading for anyone lured and fascinated by the magic of astronomy and who has a desire to extend their knowledge of the Universe and the wonders to which it plays host. The Yearbook of Astronomy is indeed an inspiration to amateur and professional astronomers alike, and warrants a place on the bookshelf of all stargazers and watchers of the skies.


From Cave Art to Hubble

From Cave Art to Hubble

Author: Jonathan Powell

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2019-11-20

Total Pages: 269

ISBN-13: 3030316882

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Since ancient times, humans have been engaged in a continual quest to find meaning in and make sense of sights and events in the night sky. Cultures spread around the world recorded their earliest efforts in artwork made directly on the natural landscapes around them, and from there they developed more and more sophisticated techniques for observing and documenting astronomy. This book brings readers on an astronomical journey through the ages, offering a history of how our species has recorded and interpreted the night sky over time. From cave art to parchment scribe to modern X-ray mapping of the sky, it chronicles the ever-quickening development of tools that informed and at times entirely toppled our understanding of the natural world. Our documentation and recording techniques formed the bedrock for increasingly complex forays into astronomy and celestial mechanics, which are addressed within these chapters. Additionally, the book explores how nature itself has recorded the skies in its own way, which can be unraveled through ongoing geological and archaeological studies. This tale of human discovery and ingenuity over the ages will appeal to anybody interested in the field of astronomy and its rich cultural history.


The New Machiavelli

The New Machiavelli

Author: Jonathan Powell

Publisher: Random House

Published: 2010-10-31

Total Pages: 356

ISBN-13: 1407092529

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The New Machiavelli is a gripping account of life inside 'the bunker' of Number 10. In his twenty-first century reworking of Niccolo Machiavelli's influential masterpiece, The Prince, Jonathan Powell - Tony Blair's Chief of Staff from 1994 - 2007 - recounts the inside story of that period, drawing on his own unpublished diaries. Taking the lessons of Machiavelli derived from his experience as an official in fifteenth-century Florence, Powell shows how these lessons can still apply today. Illustrating each of Machiavelli's maxims with a description of events that occurred during Tony Blair's time as Prime Minister, The New Machiavelli is designed to be The Prince for modern times.


Sound Unseen

Sound Unseen

Author: Brian Kane

Publisher:

Published: 2014

Total Pages: 337

ISBN-13: 0199347840

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Sound coming from outside the field of vision, from somewhere beyond, holds a privileged place in the Western imagination. When separated from their source, sounds seem to manifest transcendent realms, divine powers, or supernatural forces. According to legend, the philosopher Pythagoras lectured to his disciples from behind a veil, and two thousand years later, in the age of absolute music, listeners were similarly fascinated with disembodied sounds, employing various techniques to isolate sounds from their sources. With recording and radio came spatial and temporal separation of sounds from sources, and new ways of composing music. Sound Unseen: Acousmatic Sound in Theory and Practice explores the phenomenon of acousmatic sound. An unusual and neglected word, "acousmatic" was first introduced into modern parlance in the mid-1960s by avant garde composer of musique concrète Pierre Schaeffer to describe the experience of hearing a sound without seeing its cause. Working through, and often against, Schaeffer's ideas, Brian Kane presents a powerful argument for the central yet overlooked role of acousmatic sound in music aesthetics, sound studies, literature, philosophy and the history of the senses. Kane investigates acousmatic sound from a number of methodological perspectives -- historical, cultural, philosophical and musical -- and provides a framework that makes sense of the many surprising and paradoxical ways that unseen sound has been understood. Finely detailed and thoroughly researched, Sound Unseen pursues unseen sounds through a stunning array of cases -- from Bayreuth to Kafka's "Burrow," Apollinaire to %Zi%zek, music and metaphysics to architecture and automata, and from Pythagoras to the present-to offer the definitive account of acousmatic sound in theory and practice. The first major study in English of Pierre Schaeffer's theory of "acousmatics," Sound Unseen is an essential text for scholars of philosophy of music, electronic music, sound studies, and the history of the senses.


Letters to Margaret

Letters to Margaret

Author: Hayley Gold

Publisher: Lone Shark Games

Published: 2021-12-31

Total Pages: 130

ISBN-13: 1735638021

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Letters to Margaret is a crossword graphic novel split in two parts, one facing the opposite direction from the other. It is a comic book you can solve, as it is loaded with crossword puzzles of the kind you'd find in the New York Times. As the reader solves the puzzles, the characters comment on the crosswords throughout, and one of the characters gets a few edits from the Times's long-passed editor, Margaret Farrar. The book challenges the reader's perception of what should be in a crossword puzzle, plunging them into the world of cruciverbalism.


The Backyard Bird Chronicles

The Backyard Bird Chronicles

Author: Amy Tan

Publisher: Knopf

Published: 2024-04-23

Total Pages: 321

ISBN-13: 0593536134

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#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A gorgeous, witty account of birding, nature, and the beauty around us that hides in plain sight, written and illustrated by the best-selling author of The Joy Luck Club • With a foreword by David Allen Sibley “Unexpected and spectacular” —Ann Patchett, best-selling author of These Precious Days "The drawings and essays in this book do a lot more than just describe the birds. They carry a sense of discovery through observation and drawing, suggest the layers of patterns in the natural world, and emphasize a deep personal connection between the watcher and the watched. The birds that inhabit Amy Tan’s backyard seem a lot like the characters in her novels.” —David Allen Sibley, from the foreword Tracking the natural beauty that surrounds us, The Backyard Bird Chronicles maps the passage of time through daily entries, thoughtful questions, and beautiful original sketches. With boundless charm and wit, author Amy Tan charts her foray into birding and the natural wonders of the world. In 2016, Amy Tan grew overwhelmed by the state of the world: Hatred and misinformation became a daily presence on social media, and the country felt more divisive than ever. In search of peace, Tan turned toward the natural world just beyond her window and, specifically, the birds visiting her yard. But what began as an attempt to find solace turned into something far greater—an opportunity to savor quiet moments during a volatile time, connect to nature in a meaningful way, and imagine the intricate lives of the birds she admired.