Starlight Nights: The Adventures of a Star-Gazer [Paperback]

Leslie C. Peltier (Author), David H. Levy (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 2007

Long out of print, the much-loved autobiography of celebrated comet-hunter Leslie Peltier is being reissued on the 100th anniversary of his birth. In a career spanning six decades and using telescopes from 2 to 12 inches in diameter, Peltier discovered a dozen comets and six novae and made more than 100,000 observations of variable stars. In Starlight Nights he recalls these achievements and reflects on the meaning of observational astronomy as well as all of nature. This new edition features an introduction by Sky & Telescope magazine contributing editor David H. Levy plus 16 black-and-white photographs from the Peltier family archives.

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Sky Publishing; 2 edition (May 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0933346948
• ISBN-13: 978-0933346949
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,219,980 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "A hymn to the sky" - David Levy, July 26, 2000

By 

John Rummel (Madison, WI) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Starlight Nights: The Adventures of a Star-Gazer (Paperback)

"A hymn to the sky" -Levy. To me, no book more beautifully captures the spirit of amateur astronomy that Peltier's Starlight Nights. I first read this book several years ago and still remember marveling at Peltier's intensely personal autobiography. In writing of his childhood in Delphos, Ohio, he spares few details of life on the early 1900's farm, and we wait spellbound with him as he orders his first telescope after catching the astronomy bug as a young teenager. We breathlessly await the partial eclipse of 1918 (the teenaged Leslie lacked the funds to travel the 500 miles necessary to see totality in the US's first total eclipse of the century), and are swept away again that very night as he was one of the first to note the spectacular Nova Aquila as it rose to a stunning -1.4 mag.

Peltier's descriptions of his experiences are as elegant as they are simple. His deep respect and admiration for nature are woven into every page, not only for things astronomical, but terrestrial as well, for he was a naturalist of varied interests.

This reissue comes with a new foreword by David Levy, as well as several rare photographs (on the cover and back, as well as a few in the foreword) of Peltier, his early telescopes and homes. If you are familiar with this book, take this opportunity to read it again. If you've never read it before, set aside a long evening - you won't put it down after you start.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A trip back in time..., January 22, 2001

By 

Wes Edens (Glendale, AZ United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Starlight Nights: The Adventures of a Star-Gazer (Paperback)

Remember those movies where an old man tells his story in the form of a flashback? The kind that makes you wish you could go back in time to hang out with them, experience their life? Starlight Nights is one of those stories.
Leslie Peltier's book is full of warmth and humor. He takes us back to a 1905 farm and describes what it was like to grow up without electricity, television. The beginning of his story predates the spread of the automobile. We watch as he buys a small telescope, and without the benefit of a college education, becomes the friend and colleague of the eminent astronomers of his day. We experience the thrill of finding comets and novae, and at the same time, the quiet joy of country life a century ago.
The book is wonderfully illustrated by Mr. Peltier himself, and the introduction includes family photographs.
Absolutely recommended for everyone, not just stargazers.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A message from another world., February 16, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Starlight Nights: The Adventures of a Star-Gazer (Paperback)

This is a jem. The author would likely fail to recognize the world of 2002, and would certainly be horrified to awake in it.
He lived, really lived, in an earlier era when discovery of a new comet by an amateur simply looking through a telescope, without the CCDs and other fancy technology, was celebrated, and civilization grew at a pleasant pace in the midwest where he lived, away from the hustle, rush hours, and UN crisis. His humility in accepting the gifts of slowly increasing aperture telescopes and the way in which alone, he found good ways to use them to their best are balm to the soul.
Get a copy of this little book, turn off the TV and computer and regress to Peltier's world of worthwhile ways of spending your time while seeing the universe. Fortunately, you don't really have to wait weeks to get a copy if you'll dial up Sky and Telescope.