Customer Reviews

Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto and How to Observe Them (Astronomers' Observing Guides)

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This book has a lot of interesting and detailed information on the outer planets and would be perfect for an advanced amateur astronomer who wants to do his own research and observations. An armchair astronomer or beginning enthusiast might have trouble understanding some of the technical information in this book and may decide to skip over some of the graphs and equations. Dr. Schmude has a very direct and no-nonsense style of writing that packs a lot of technical information and data into each chapter. A reader who wants a coffee table style book with basic information and large photographs should look elsewhere. I enjoyed the book because it was a challenge to understand all of the information and I actually learned how to do planetary research with basic equipment.

Sadly; exploring both Uranus and Neptune including their Moons at this stage in time have fallen from humanities interest to explore due to economic reasons or whatever excuses someone somewhere conjures up. What we have about them was basically obtained from Voyager 2 flyby in its Grand Tour of the Solar System. The Magnificent Moons around them such as Miranda and Triton which is geologically active are amazing; yet sadly we will never learn anything more in the near future; and for many of us we may pass on to the whatever lies beyond before we learn more; my guess is we have to be satisfied with "Artists Impressions" of what these places look like. Pluto is a bit lucky as the "New Horizons" mission is underway to explore that region of space, perhaps not all is lost.

This book may help awaken your the interest in space exploration and maybe create a new group of amateur and professional astronomers who will stir up public interest to send space probes to those two planets in line with Galileo and Cassini.

Catch a glimpse of those two Planets, and see if you can find the "DOT" of light called Pluto. This book has all you need and more; unfortunately that's all there is for now about those planets; not enough for fill more than a few pages!!!

Dr. Richard Schmude gives wonderful and indepth information on Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. I had Dr. Schmude as a professor for Astronomy, and he brings the same knowledge and enthusiasim to this book as he did in the class room.