J. Brit. Astron. Assoc., 106, 6, 1996, p. 343
Cambridge University Press, 1996. ISBN 0-521-40324-3 (hbk); 0-521-40871-7 (pbk). Pp v + 240, £19.99 (pbk); £55 (hbk).
reviewed by Michael Carson-Rowland
I always flick through any new book quickly to get some impression of its content. With this one you might wonder if you were looking at a book on astronomy, since very few of the 300 or more colour illustrations bear much resemblance to what one normally expects to see. ('It's astronomy Jim, but not as we know it!') The clue is in the title: superb use has been made of colour-coded images from those parts of the spectrum which are invisible to the naked eye. Just how much of the sky falls into this category is indicated by a very neat analogy on the first page: '...traditional astronomy was an effort to understand the symphony of the Universe with ears which could hear only middle C and the two notes immediately adjacent.'
The book is organised in such a way that the odd-numbered chapters deal with the techniques – optical, infrared, radio, ultraviolet and X- & gamma-ray astronomy, whilst the following even-numbered ones concentrate on the results. This works very well, as does the technique of giving the chapter heading at the bottom of the left-hand page, with the subject covered at the bottom of the right-hand, especially as it is not always apparent, if you dip into the book, just what you are looking at. After all, everyone knows the Crab Nebula, but you might not recognise it immediately from the half-dozen images on pages 102–103! One of these reveals that the Crab Pulsar, despite a distance of 6500 light years, is the third brightest gamma-ray source in the sky.
In the 'techniques' chapters, we are reminded that whilst it was discovered in 1800 by Sir William Herschel, Infrared only came into its own 40 years ago, and it is only 20 years since very sensitive detectors were developed. X-ray astronomy, despite some early work in 1948 on a V2 rocket, did not begin until 1962 and the International Ultraviolet Explorer satellite wasn't launched until 1978. This book clearly confirms the opening sentence: "The 'New Astronomy' is a phenomenon of the late twentieth century, and it has completely revolutionised our concept of the Universe."
Nigel Henbest is a past Editor of the Journal, and his skill at popularising astronomy is amply demonstrated here; Michael Marten founded and runs the Science Photo Library. The authors, and Cambridge University Press, are to be congratulated on this splendid production. The whole book can be summed up in two words: buy it. And if you like the pictures, many of them can be supplied by Science Photo Library.
Have I a gripe? Yes. The hardback is too expensive and the paperback version which I reviewed suffers from the problem of nearly all of its ilk: pictures spread across the binding exhibit the black hole syndrome. But this does not detract one iota from its appeal.
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