Customer Reviews

Moons and Planets

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

 

 

The first time I read this book was when one of my graduate teachers asked me to review it. While he thought it to basic for graduate-level work, I have used this book ever since, for students of all ages. Well written and illustrated with black-&-white pictures as well as the author's own well-respected artwork, it covers so much in such a small book it's hard to believe. The appendix of plantary data is up-to-date & comprehensive, lacking only some of the more esoteric elements (like the moment of inertia factor and J2 moment - if you don't know what those are, you won't miss them). Best at an undergraduate level, no math is required; all the math is set aside in boxes from the text, ready to use when the reader is ready but not required for a firm understanding of the subject at hand. And while it's clearly written as a textbook, it's far better reading than your average college text on the subject. While there are many "overview" books on the market, this is one of the best in my opinion; while I like and use more flashy texts like "The New Solar System", this is the one that I go back to again & again to review the basics or perform a simple calculation.

The fact that the publishers can charge students $200 for a one semester black and white textbook is outrageous, and borderline unethical in my opinion. Though it looks like the price is coming down a bit. Having said that, this is the only acceptable textbook I know of that teaches Planetary Astronomy at a level that is above introductory astronomy, but below the graduate level. The textbook is reasonably thorough, although there are the noticeable omissions, given all of the advances made in the last five years since the textbook's publishing. The author is clearly knowledgable on the subject matter, though he shows an obvious bias arising from his growing up in the 60s and 70s when putting people on the moon and envisioning human colonies in space was the forefront of astronomy technology. Overall, the content of the book is decent. The chapters consist of text on planetary physics facts and theories, with intermittent math sections that explain the physics in more quantitative terms. There are a few typos and factual errors. In summary, there is effectively no competitive textbook out there that can match this one, despite all of its drawbacks, including the obscene price tag.

This book is very good at a conceptual level and does a very good job explaining observations in photo and written format. I used it for an Astronomy class and was a little disappointed on the detail of math in this book. Of course it has your basic stuff like Kepler's laws, Accretion, and relation of Kinetic Energy with orbit shapes and stuff but they are separated as optional notes instead of derived in text. That could be good or bad depending what you want, but the book itself is very good and the product arrived in great condition.