The Stars
A beginner's comprehensive guide to the stars, presenting the constellations in shapes that correspond sensibly to their names. Includes forty charts of the skies through the seasons.
Stats for nerds
5recommend
6mentions
6people
2009–2026years
83% recommend17% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- Even if you don't have a telescope or binoculars, you can still enjoy naked eye star gazing. The book that got me started and which I highly recommend: The Stars: A New Way to See Them by H. A. Rey
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stars:_A_New_Way_to_See_Th...
- I recently got interested in looking at the planets and constellations and I want to suggest these to anyone who is interested:
This book introduced me to how the earth moves and how to find any constellations in the sky: https://www.amazon.com/Stars-New-Way-See-Them/dp/0544763440/
My area has pretty bad light pollution and so having this binoculars really helps to see the hard to see stars (The wide angles helps you see several stars at once so I prefer it to the telescopes): https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B084R99W8Q/
- This awesome book helped me "see" the constellations (sometime I'll really take the time to learn more of them!)
- My son is 5 and has proven to be a total scientist. His current favorite book: H A Rey's The Stars, A New Way to See Them. We take that, a red flashlight, and binoculars out back before bed. He insists on learning the stories. The "kit" of the book, binos and red light sit on the coffee table by the back door, ever ready.
http://www.amazon.com/Stars-New-Way-See-Them/dp/0395248302/r...
Here's a new topic, please tell us about great books you recommend for boys: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1724596
- Depends on what sort of knowledge you're trying to get. If you just want to be able to point out constellations, I would recommend The Stars by H. A. Rey (yes, the same guy who wrote Curious George). It's unique in that it displays the constellations in a manner that makes them actually look like what they're trying to represent (which ends up making them much easier to find). There's also some good descriptions of the mythology behind many of the constellations and some other interesting features in the sky that can be picked out with the naked eye or binoculars. There's also a section at the end that discusses the celestial sphere (how the sky changes during the seasons, the ecliptic, precession, etc.).
If you want something with more depth, I highly recommend Night Sky from St. Martin's Press. It's a little 300 page field guide that will give you a comprehensive introduction to the heavens and basic astronomy and provides you with enough data to go out observing with. The first quarter of the book is devoted to introducing the fundamentals of astronomy from the celestial sphere, to coordinate systems, to telescope designs, to the magnitude system, to variable stars, and stellar evolution. The rest of the book contains star charts, detailed descriptions of each of the constellations and interesting objects therein, and information on the planets. The only problem is that the book is a bit old, so the tables of data (sunset times, positions of the planets, etc.) are now out of date. Nevertheless, it's well worth buying.
If you would like a more serious introduction to astronomy and know some basic physics and calculus, you can do no better than to read Introduction to Modern Astrophysics by Carroll & Ostlie (affectionately known as BOB -- the Big Orange Book). It's about 1500 pages long and covers absolutely everything in astronomy. It's clear, comprehensive, and will likely tell you everything you need to know.
- H A Rey The Stars (1952) had a nice series of cartoons depicting a caveman, a grey-flannel-suit man, and a futuristic man all looking at their respective versions of the big dipper.
The Barbers' When They Severed Earth From Sky (2004) hypothesises that the various kingship changes in heaven of several ancient mythologies correspond to the precession of the solstices and equinoxes through the zodiac. Eg, for Greek mythology, they give:
along with parallel tables for Babylonian, Hittite, Phoenician, and Norse mythologies, and reference a different work which should give Germanic, Finnic, Iranian, Indian, and Chinese mythological shifts.Head God Summer Spring CHAOS Libra Cancer ~6480 BC OURANOS Virgo Gemini ~4320 BC KRONOS Leo Taurus ~2160 BC ZEUS Cancer AriesAccording to this hypothesis, when the fall equinox moved into Virgo and Saturn and Jupiter came into conjunction with Pisces in 6 BC, many ancients took it as marking the advent of a new Kingdom of Heaven ruling a New Age, making them more susceptible to picking up new religions emanating from the middle east around that time, eg Mithraism.
Does Virgil, writing ca 40 BC, predict the New Age? [Fourth Eclogue 4-10]
> Now is come the last age of Cumaean song; the great line of the centuries begins anew. Now the Virgin returns, the reign of Saturn returns; now a new generation descends from heaven on high. Only do you, pure Lucina, smile on the birth of the child, under whom the iron brood shall at last cease and a golden race spring up throughout the world!
(but note that by this counting the "Age of Aquarius" wouldn't be due to start until ca 2160; rather far off in human lifetimes from the 1960s)
