The 100 new illustrations include many glorious images: exploding stars and colliding galaxies, the profound vision of the Hubble Deep Field, gravitational lenses, the impact of Comet Shoemaker-Levy on Jupiter, and pictures of other solar systems. But the book is not just a collection of pretty pictures; it's also an excellent introduction to astronomy. Since it describes both objects (from the level of the nearby planets to the level of the big bang) and instruments, it gives laypeople a particularly accurate idea of what astronomers actually do--and of how much fun they have doing it.
Brandt is an astronomer at the University of Colorado and a principal investigator for the space telescope, while his collaborator Collins Petersen is a science writer with practical experience in astronomy. Their combined expertise results in a book that is authoritative but not daunting, gorgeous but not superficial. You may want to keep it on your coffee table, but you should also actually read it. --Mary Ellen Curtin
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
39 of 42 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Hubble Heaven,
This review is from: Hubble Vision: Further Adventures with the Hubble Space Telescope (Hardcover)
To the average person like myself it is simple uncomprehensable that way out here is all of this energy, peacefully and sometimes horrifically looming around us. Reading this book, and particularly looking intensely at the wonderful colour photographs, I cannot feel anything else but awe for the sheer original beauty of our universe, and the great bridges that we need to cross scientifically to even make an inch of sense of it. The text is easy enough for the pure enthusiast to understand the concepts, but for those with a thirst for knowledge, these pages reveal centuries of human time devoted to exploring milleniums and milleniums of universal time. It really does make you feel as though the only thing between us and the secret of everything is our humble mortality, not our need to know. Hubble Vision gives you a snapshot of the heavens, and beyond, something we'll never experince first hand in our life-time at least!
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
the glory that was hubble,
By Robert J. Crawford (Balmette Talloires, France) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)
This review is from: Hubble Vision: Further Adventures with the Hubble Space Telescope (Hardcover)
This is a book about big science in space. The hubble telescope was the most complex piece of scientific equipment that was ever built to operate off of Earth. From its initial "mistake" in a poorly honed hyperbolic mirror - its "correction" became a major media event that nearly busted Nasa's budget - to the innumerable failing subsystems in constant need of adjustment, its success is something of a phenomenon.
But a success it indisputably was, one of the greatest in the history of human endeavor and easily the equal to, say, the creation of the Gothic cathedral. Images from the telescope have become so uniquitous, such as its use as background in Star Trek, that we would be shocked if they disappeared. Of course, the advancement of virtually all fields of astronomy that it spawned will enrich us forever. Not only can we plumb the composition of stars and search for planets more accurately, but such scientific givens as the Hubble constant are coming into question with the precision measurements not coming available. Even amateurs, if they come up with an interesting proposal, can get a crack at making scientific history. Peterson and Brandt cover these developments competently and clearly, with gorgeous photos throughout the book to add to its wonder. While they do not cover they public policy angle alll too well, the science is enough (even if it gets a bit too gee-whiz for my taste at times). Warmly recommended.
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Beautiful Coffee Table Book,
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Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Hubble Vision: Further Adventures with the Hubble Space Telescope (Hardcover)
Your taxes paid for Hubble.
You really should get this book, and look at the pictures. It is outstanding.
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