Galaxies and Galactic Structure [Hardcover]

Debra Meloy Elmegreen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 22, 1997 | ISBN-10: 0137792328 | ISBN-13: 978-0137792320 | Edition: 1st

This exploration of galaxies and galactic structures is designed to fill the gap between introductory-level texts (which are often cursory by necessity) and graduate-level texts (which assume physics and mathematics preparation and include details that are beyond the scope of intermediate-level work). Comprehensive in scope, it considers the formation, structure, evolution, and distribution of galaxies - and is particularly strong in its approach to analyzing light distributions in galaxies and in developing a theoretical framework in which to interpret the observations.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Key Benefit: Comprehensive in scope, the book considers the formation, structure, evolution, and distribution of galaxies, and is particularly strong it its approach to analyzing light distributions in galaxies and in developing a theoretical framework in which to interpret the observations. Key Topics: A general description of galaxies is followed by a detailed examination of their light distributions, and then kinematic data allow an interpretation of the cause of the structure. Later chapters deal with interactions of galaxies and their distribution in the cosmos. The book also integrates discussions of different types of galaxies throughout.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 306 pages
• Publisher: Prentice Hall College Div; 1st edition (December 22, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0137792328
• ISBN-13: 978-0137792320
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #479,330 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book, June 6, 2000

By 

Khalid Alsubai - See all my reviews

This review is from: Galaxies and Galactic Structure (Hardcover)

It is one of the best books to introduce the subject, very easy to read and learn even without instructor, I highly recommend it undergraduate level, in spit of it a little bit expensive but it is worth it.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Expectations..., April 1, 2000

By 

Eduardo Osorio Armenta "eosorio" (Apodaca, México) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Galaxies and Galactic Structure (Hardcover)

This book it's the best to what it's level is UNDERGRADUATE. Clarity, lot's of pictures for that, pretty academic taste. It is a little expensive!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Introductory physical and algebraic textbook on Galaxies - with simplified equations, January 21, 2011

By 

R. A. Lang "madbioman" (Brisbane, Australia) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Galaxies and Galactic Structure (Hardcover)

Of the textbooks on Galaxies which have a lot of equations in them, this is the one which gives the most simplified versions of these equations - as such, it is understandable to anyone whose schooling included algebraic manipulation and complex graphs and some basic physics. This book explains a good portion of what you need to know in order to be able to understand the professional literature of Milky Way and extragalactic astronomy. It gives the reader insight into how professional astronomers think numerically about things like: distance modulus, galaxy magnitudes, galaxy isophotes, radial intensity profiles of galaxies, broadband colors of galaxies, spiral galaxy morphology (e.g. bars, spiral arms), the star formation rate in a galaxy, and the interstellar medium within galaxies. Elmegreen's text achieves this without recourse to a lot of calculus, and with maximum hand-holding from the author. As such, it is suitable for Very Advanced amateur astronomers and for people undertaking a really serious study of galaxies at the college or lower-undergraduate level.

Often in this text, the presented equations and calculations of galactic parameters (e.g. of the inclination of spiral galaxies, of the extinction within galaxies, of Galaxy magnitudes and colors) are pared down and simplified to the extent that they do not represent the way these things are currently calculated by professional astronomers. This approach has decided pluses and minuses:
- the frustration of not getting the full story about a calculation. (a minus)
- the greater ease of understanding of a simplified equation. (a plus)
- adequate information to start the reader on the journey towards knowing how to work with galaxies in a quantitative manner. (a plus)

To its credit, this book is clear enough to provide the insight a person needs in order to be able to follow up with further reading about how calculations are actually done by today's astronomers. The reader is taught, albeit in a simplified way, how to use numbers and equations to figure out some worthwhile things about galaxies.

This book does however exemplify the all-too-common limitations of approach which are caused by a book having an over-specialized Scientist author who is bravely trying to explain incredibly vast fields of knowledge within a single slim volume. For example, several of the tables and graphs contain very very very Old (and inaccurate) galaxy data which is not the best that is currently available; data which was already out-of-date when this book was written! A much more significant flaw in this book is that those sections of the book that the author is less of an expert on....... are less detailed and less up-to-date than they should be.

Accordingly, this text has a few important limitations:
- as is the case in virtually every textbook about galaxies written at the undergraduate level, the section on the Classification of Galaxies is too simplified to be really useful, and very out of date.
- the section on elliptical galaxies represents the state of knowledge 20 years before this book was written, rather than what was known about elliptical galaxies by the mid- to late- 1980s. This part of the book is therefore grossly oversimplified and also wrong in several places.
- some basic information presented in this book is actually not correct.

It may actually be unavoidable in a slim volume such as this, which is written at a beginning physical/mathematical level, that some topics will be dealt with in an oversimplified or somewhat out-of-date manner, so perhaps this book's Significant Weaknesses may not actually be a great problem.
Elmegreen does indeed explain many things about Galaxies. She explains galaxies in a lucid introductory-level quantitative manner, with physical/algebraic/graphical explanations that are easy to follow if you have had prior exposure to some algebra and physics.