Customer Reviews

Galactic Astronomy (Princeton Series in Astrophysics)

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

 

 

Galactic Astronomy is one of the most complete and up to date texts on the subject of galaxies. The text is not lacking in mathematical rigor and also includes the results of recent observations and analyses that complement the theoretical exposition of subjects. It ties together results from many fields and is a good text for anyone who is interested in the study of our Milky Way or of external galaxies. The first chapters include a good description of such basic topics as coordinate systems, astrometry, the magnitude scale, stellar spectra, and binary star kinematics. Other chapters include the Milky Way's stars, stellar populations, interstellar medium, star clusters, and stellar kinematics and show how our knowledge of these has been applied to better understand external galaxies as well. There are also chapters on galaxy morphology and the cosmological distance scale. Nice features of the book include a handy listing of astronomical research aids that are available on the world wide web, as well as lists of astronomical sky surveys and catalogs. Altogether, Galactic Astronomy is worth reading by any professional astronomer, grad student, or advanced undergraduate with an interest in the study of galaxies.

There are three specific areas in which this book fails. I will address them in turn: 1) The information is way out of date. Although the publishing date is recent, the authors have made very little attempt to present the major advances that have occurred in this science over the last few years. As a result of this problem, there is some critical information in the book that is simply inaccurate. The information reflects understandings that are five to ten years old - not what we know today. 2) The writing style is very difficult to follow. The authors seem to think they are writing for their fellow professional astronomers, not for students. They don't explain the concepts sufficiently and they end up leaving the reader confused and disappointed. 3) About half the pages are mostly mathematics. This is fine if you understand advanced math and you can follow the authors reasoning. The problem is that as I closely checked the math I found glaring errors in it. On just about every few pages there would be a math error. This makes it that much more difficult to understand the information. I would suggest you save your money - and frustration! Find a better book.

Astronomy today deals with a wide array of exotic objects for which relevant physical processes vary so much. To be comprehensive and up-to-date at the same time in such an academic subject is no easy task. If you have the pleasure or dismay of having to expose yourself to the cutting edge information about any subject in astronomy, you know that astronomy in general is confusing as hell. To illuminate the most essential concepts and connection between what appears to be entirely different astrophysical phenomena is very hard, yet in my opinion this text book does a fairly decent job in that respect.

If you are literate about any of the details of astrophysics that this text book might gross over, you sure will find the information to be obsolete and rather simplistic. After all the book is not meant to be a collection of review articles. But since the book means to give you the first exposure to just about any subject in astronomy, the discussions are shallow yet to the point so that you will not lose your big picture in bogging yourself down to boring details. This still might be a slow read if you are really just starting out, but as you pick more astronomy you will start appreciating the conciseness which only help you connect things that you learned but have not necessarily been related in your world of knowledge.

And another important point is, can you come up with any other book that covers introductory astrophysics better? Maybe Shu or Carroll and Ostlie, but the list ends there pretty much.

This book is, as it says on the cover, for readers with a background in physics - specifically, for professionals, graduate students, and advanced undergraduates. It will therefore be heavily mathematical, as there is no other way in which to express the theories within, and to quantitatively distinguish between them - an essential part of all scientific research.

The ideas are explained clearly, and there are frequent up-to-date references: the book was published mid-1998, and updated quite a lot from its previous incarnation. Where a field is moving very rapidly, like in parts of astrophysics, there is clearly always a danger that the work will become out of date, but most (at least all I have had to read) of what is in this book is still current.

This book is not only beautifully written, and presented, it also covers an incredible range of subjects, making it suitable not only for background reading for those who study galactic astrophysics, but also those working in stellar astrophysics. The authors clearly know their stuff in very wide-ranging areas of astrophysics, and are passionate about them, as it comes across very clearly, and adds to the joy of reading this book.

One of the many things that makes this such a wonderful book is the clear linking of astrophysical phenomena with basic physics, something which is easy to lose sight of when confronted with exotic objects and processes. A particularly lovely example of this (IMO) is the explanation of the effects of the kappa-mechanism in variable stars in terms of the humble heat engine in thermodynamics.

Admittedly, if you were wanting an introduction to galactic astronomy this would not be the book for you, but, for its target audience it is an amazing book.

Some reviewers say they don't understand the math or the concepts in this book; and have therefore given it bad reviews. In actual fact, this is a widely recommended and widely used university-level textbook about galaxies for those people with a physics/algebra orientation; people who understand equations, graphs, and detailed technical diagrams. So why criticize this book for being too technical? Furthermore, this book is NOT out-of-date; as a regular reader of the Astrophysical Journal, I assure you that this book is not dated, despite the 1998 publication date...it emphasizes the basic core of securely-known ideas about galaxies!
This textbook is a remarkably deep and wide-ranging overview; it covers most of the significant topics within extragalactic astronomy, in great detail, at a level similar to that of scientific papers which are currently being written on galaxies. Thus, if you want to reach that level of knowledge where you fully understand what professional astronomers are doing NOW, get yourself a copy of Binney & Merrifield.
Warning! A mid-level amateur astronomer will find this book much too hard, as it is nominally at the
"upper-undergraduate through to professional scientist" level. However, a very-persistent advanced amateur astronomer (knowing some physics) can understand this book's numerous long sections of cogent descriptive material that have only few equations intruding. This book is NOT crammed with equations, and most of the equations are simple enough for someone with a year of university maths. The authors wisely resort to graphs, in order to make physical/mathematical concepts more accessible to "the lesser brethren".
In summary, this book is a comprehensive view of galaxies; so reading it is an efficient way to teach yourself much of what is securely known about galaxies by professional astronomers. The alternative method of obtaining expert galaxian knowledge is infinitely more time-consuming; looking up concepts and ideas piecemeal, then stitching together scattered bits & pieces of information. This heavy-duty work is also a superb backup reference for really serious astronomers; many times, my heavily laden shelves of "galaxies books" contained no answer when I needed a clear explanation of something in the Astrophysical Journal...but Binney and Merrifield often had what I needed.

This book is a standard reference that every galactic & stellar astronomer must own. It is ideal for a PhD student to learn from. This book is far better than it's companion Galactic Dynamics by Binney & Tremaine. Much more readable and digestible. It is however less rigorous in its mathematical treatment of the dynamics in the galaxy... obviously.

Published in 1998 the text is somewhat dated in this fast moving field. It does, however, provide a sound knowledge base required for understanding recent discoveries in astronomy and astrophysics. Filled with charts, data and formulae it's for the casual reader.

"Galactic Astronomy" treat a lot of astrophysics topics (galaxies, Milky Way, stellar evolution and more) with precision and clarity. The complete index allows rapid search. A good book for the first approach to astrophysics problem, not exhaustive for all the subject treated.

As one of the major textbooks of astrophysics intended for serious students, I find this very disappointing. It contains much that is inaccurate and dated, and important sections, for example on stellar structure and evolution, are confused and lacking detail.

I read the complete book but I must admit I understood very little of it. The main reason for this is that the authors seem to have written the book for those who already are fully versed in the technical details of the subject. I am not, and I was hoping this book would elevate my understanding of the field. Unfortunately it did not. Furthermore, I found the book completely lacking in information about the more recent discoveries in cosmology. It appears to be about ten years behind.