Customer Reviews

Optical Astronomical Spectroscopy

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I'm providing chapter and appendix headings below. I'll let them do most of the talking about balance. The book treats a broad number of topics in fair depth. There are numerous figures, diagrams, and b/w photographs of spectra and equipment. There are 11 pages of the index. Overall the book is at a comfortable undergraduate college level, but there are times when more depth to explanations would be useful. The bibliography is quite good. The book was published in 1995, so may be somewhat incomplete in its references. Perhaps a good filler for latest methodology is the internet. Somehow I don't think it's changed a lot. A book by Tennyson on this subject was published in 2005, but I see a review says it's 200 pages. Kitchin's book checks in at a total or 272 pages. The paperback version is nicely laid out, and comfortable on the eye. My copy is about 6-7 years old, and the paper shows no deterioration.

It's unfortunate that Amazon did provide the usual index, TOC, and sample pages.

Chapters

Part 1 -- Atomic Processes, 113 pages

1. Intro to Spectroscopy

2. The Physics of Atoms and Molecules

3. Atomic Energy Levels

4. Transitions

5. Spectra of Molecules

6. Radiation in the Presence of Fields

7. Spectroscopy of Solid Materials

Part 2 -- Astro Spectroscopy Techniques, ~63 pages

8. Optical Spectroscopes

9. Specialized ... Techniques for Astronomy

10. Examples of Optical Spectroscopes

Part 3 -- Spectroscopy of Astro Sources, ~66 pages

11. Spectral Classification

12. Radial Velocities

13. Spectrophotometry

14. Stars

15. Planets and Other Minor Bodies in the Solar System

16. Nebulae and the Interstellar Medium

17. Extra Galactic Objects

Appendicies, ~20 pages

A. Conversion Formulae

B. Terms for Equivalent Electrons

C. Bibliography

D. Constants

This book is targeted at astronomers, but spends fully the first half of the book rehashing undergrad physics (in a very dull way). Next it goes into the design of spectrographs but restricts itself to such limited designs that its not very helpful.

I bought the book in order to learn about doing spectroscopy, unfortunately that section is so short and lacking in detail that its useless. The book is only of any use to someone contemplating building a spectrograph, but such a person would already be well versed beyond the book's scope.