Customer Reviews

Capturing the Stars: Astrophotography by the Masters

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a great book for browsing and for getting inspiration. There is a wide variety of photographs covering the sun, planets, aurora, meteors, comets and deep sky objects of all types. There are some very nice fusions of landscape and sky. This is essentially a picture book and such books stand or fall on the quality and merits of their pictures. This book passes such a test with ease. The pictures themselves are of a quality that is achieved by only a select few and the quality of reproduction is excellent. Each picture is accompanied by a succinct description of the object.

However I do have some criticisms. Nowhere are there any details of the exposure or of the telescope used. It would have been nice to have an appendix with this information and perhaps also an indication of the scale. The page numbering system is a little odd. Pages 1-8 occur before the list of contents. Also, in many cases the pictures cover the whole page and in this case the page numbers are not printed. This means having to search for a numbered page and then counting from there to locate a particular page number.

I have noticed some glaring and quite inexplicable factual errors in the figure captions. On Page 41 there is a picture of a crescent moon, 3 or 4 days old. The caption says"Earth's shadow transforms the lunar surface into a stark and desolate landscape of mountains, valleys and craters". What is this supposed to mean? The Earth's shadow has got nothing to do with the visibility of features on a crescent moon.
On Page 42, there is a picture of a transit of Mercury. The caption is quite explicit that what is seen is the SHADOW of Mercury on the sun and not Mercury itself.


However these are relatively minor points and this is a book which I have no hesitation in recommending.

This book is a compilation of the best of the best! I highly recommend it to everyone. The labor of love that went into making these images is astounding. I do astrophotograhy myself and I can understand the efforts invloved. However,
I do wish more technical details were given explaining how (exposures, imagers, processing, telescopes, and mounts) these fantastic images were aquired.
I look forward to a sequel!
Bob

....of the reasons already given by the other reviewers: no technical details of equipment used, exposures, or processing. This information would have been so easy to add and would have enhanced the book considerably. Omitting this information was a major error.

In Capturing The Stars, Robert Gendler exposes a deep passion for the cosmos and astronomy. The book is a stunning exposé of professional and amature astronomers, laced with dazzling images of the visible universe. This is not meant to be a technical manual or teaching tool. It is a beautiful display of love that the author holds for the universe and astronomy. I highly recommend this book. - William James

Robert Gendler is a master of astroimaging! This book is well-done with lots of information and gorgeous astro imagery!!!! Go get it...

The images are breathtaking, but it would have been nice to know what type of telescope, camera, etc, was used for each picture.

I bought this book for my daughter who is 7 years old and who started to study the Universe and the Big Bang at school. We all loved the photos, they are absolutely amazing! Of course we lacked information about what stars are, how they are formed...but I guess that was not the purpose of the book. If you are looking for that type of information you should go for an enciclopedia, but if you are an amateur and only want to know what our universe looks like then this is a great book!

The order was recieved in a short amount of time and in very good condition. Thank you!