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Observing the Sun with Coronado™ Telescopes
At around the turn of the millennium, the introduction of the Coronado range of solar telescopes and filters heralded the ‘coming of age’ of amateur solar astronomy. Before then, solar astronomy was mostly white-light only. Hydrogen-alpha systems were expensive and difficult to use, but today even the budget-priced Coronado PST (Personal Solar Telescope) provides a band pass of one Angstrom and is thermally stable. That means that today’s amateur solar observers can see – and image – sunspots, flares, prominences, plage, filaments, and active regions of the Sun, all in amazing detail.
Neutrinos and Explosive Events in the Universe
“Neutrinos and Explosive Events in the Universe” brought together experts from diverse disciplines to offer a detailed view of the exciting new work in this part of High Energy Astrophysics. Sponsored by NATO as an Advanced Study Institute, and coordinated under the auspices of the International School of Cosmic Ray Astrophysics (14th biennial course), the ASI featured a full program of lectures and discussion in the ambiance of the Ettore Majorana Centre in Erice, Italy, including visits to the local Dirac and Chalonge museum collections as well as a view of the cultural heritage of southern Sicily. Enri- ment presentations on results from the Spitzer Infrared Space Telescope and the Origin of Complexity complemented the program. This course was the best attended in the almost 30 year history of the School with 121 participants from 22 countries. The program provided a rich ex- rience, both introductory and advanced, to fascinating areas of observational Astrophysics Neutrino Astronomy, High Energy Gamma Ray Astronomy, P- ticle Astrophysics and the objects most likely responsible for the signals - plosions and related phenomena, ranging from Supernovae to Black Holes to the Big Bang. Contained in this NATO Science Series volume is a summative formulation of the physics and astrophysics of this newly emerging research area that already has been, and will continue to be, an important contributor to understanding our high energy universe.
Multiwavelength Mapping of Galaxy Formation and Evolution ; Proceedings of the ESO Workshop Held at Venice, Italy, 13-16 October 2003
The possibilities of astronomical observation have dramatically increased over the last decade. Major satellites, like the Hubble Space Telescope, Chandra and XMM Newton, are complemented by numerous large ground-based observatories, from 8m-10m optical telescopes to sub-mm and radio facilities. As a result, observational astronomy has access to virtually the whole electromagnetic spectrum of galaxies, even at high redshifts. Theoretical models of galaxy formation and cosmological evolution now face a serious challenge to match the plethora of observational data. In October 2003, over 170 astronomers from 15 countries met for a 4-day workshop to extensively illustrate and discuss all major observational projects and ongoing theoretical efforts to model galaxy formation and evolution. This volume contains the complete proceedings of this meeting and is therefore a unique and timely overview of the current state of research in this rapidly evolving field.
Modeling and Control of Antennas and Telescopes
Modeling and Control of Antennas and Telescopes presents the author’s research and field experience in the area of antenna modeling, dynamics, and control. The required spacecraft tracking accuracy of 1 mdeg was the impetus for the new approaches to the antenna controls that use model based controllers (LQG and H¥ ). Consequently, modeling also required a new approach using system identification techniques. Most of the material presented is new in the telescope industry. The methods have been not only analyzed and tested, but actually implemented, giving confidence in the final result, which is significantly increased antenna pointing accuracy.
Isolated Neutron Stars : from the Surface to the Interior
This book collects the contributions presented at the conference Isolated Neutron Stars, held in London in April 2006. It presents an up-to-date description of the new vision of isolated neutron stars that has emerged in recent years with the advance of multi-wavelength observations.
Imaging planetario : Guida all’uso della webcam = Planetary Imaging : Guide to using the webcam
In this book, Martin Mobberley introduces the amateur to the use of webcams and digital image processing, while providing detailed tips for shooting the Sun, Moon and planets. Each object, with its specific shooting and processing techniques, is treated in a separate chapter. Through the images in this book, the amateur will be able to realize what can be done by applying a webcam to your telescope!
Human vision and the night sky : How to improve your observing skills
This book is not for beginners. Nor is it for experts – instead it addresses the needs of practical amateur astronomers who want to make the jump to the new challenges of serious visual observing. Second Steps in Observational Astronomy begins by teaching you, as an amateur astronomer, to use the most important tool you have: your eyes. Visual observing is very definitely a skill that can be learned. Of course it is important to have your other optical equipment – telescope and accessories – set up and operating as perfectly as possible. This book describes how. After these vital preliminaries, subsequent chapters include a series of observing challenges that will entertain you and push your observing skills to continually higher levels of excellence for years to come. Take a tour of the solar-system as you never viewed it before, then beyond into the realm of deep space – using just your own eyes to reveal more detail than you ever thought possible.
Hubble : 15 Years of Discovery
This book forms part of the European Space Agency’s 15th anniversary celebration activities for the 1990 launch of the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. As an observatory in space, Hubble is one of the most successful scientific projects of all time, both in terms of scientific output and its immediate public appeal.Hubble creates an enormous impact by exploiting a unique scientific niche where no other instruments can compete. It consistently delivers super-sharp images and clean, uncontaminated spectra over the entire near-infrared and ultraviolet regions of the electromagnetic spectrum. This has opened up new scientific territory and resulted in many paradigm-breaking discoveries.
How to photograph the moon and planets with your Digital camera
Using just a regular digital camera along with an amateur astronomical telescope, anyone can produce spectacular photographs of the Moon, as well as surprisingly good images of major planets.Purpose-made astronomical CCD cameras are still very expensive, but technology has now progressed so that digital cameras – the kind you use for everyday photos – are more than capable of being used for astronomy. Tony Buick has written this illustrated step-by-step manual for anyone who has a telescope (of any size) and a digital camera. Look inside at the beautiful color images he has produced – you could do the same.
High-Velocity Clouds
On the occasion of the retirement of Ulrich Schwarz, a symposium was held in Groningen in May of 1996, celebrating his contributions to the study of the int- stellar medium, including his work on the high-velocity clouds. The coming together of many specialists in the latter ?eld prompted the idea of compiling a book c- taining their contributions, and summarizing the status of our understanding of the high-velocity cloud phenomenon. This seemed especially worthwhile at the time, since many exciting developments were taking place. After the discovery of some H i clouds with high velocities, about 40 years ago, the subject had been dominated by 21-cm observations of H i emission. Starting in the mid-1980s much progress was being made because of the availability of new instruments, such as large ground-based optical telescopes and UV observatories in space. The connections between the work on high-velocity clouds and other studies of the properties of the (hot) interstellar medium also became clearer.
Highlights of Spanish Astrophysics IV ; Proceedings of the Seventh Scientific Meeting of the Spanish Astronomical Society (SEA) held in Barcelona, Spain, September 12-15, 2006
This volume documents the contributions presented at the Seventh Scientific Meeting of the Spanish Astronomical Society (Sociedad Española de Astronomía, SEA). Two plenary sessions of the meeting were devoted to the approved entrance of Spain as a full member of the European Southern Observatory (ESO) and to the imminent first light of the greatest telescope in the world, the GTC (Gran Telescopio de Canarias), milestones that will certainly lead the Spanish Astronomy in the next future.
High Resolution Infrared Spectroscopy in Astronomy ; Proceedings of an ESO Workshop Held at Garching, Germany, 18-21 November 2003
Two specialized new instruments for ESO's VLT, VISIR and CRIRES, spawned the idea for this workshop. CRIRES is a dedicated very high resolution infrared spectrograph; VISIR features a high resolution spectroscopic mode. Together, the instruments combine the sensitivity of an 8m-telescope with the now well-established reliability of VLT-facility instruments. High resolution here means that lines in cool stellar atmospheres and HII-regions can be resolved. The astrophysical topics discussed in this rather specialized workshop range from the inner solar system to active galactic nuclei. There are many possibilities for new discoveries with these instruments, but the unique capability, which becomes available through high-resolution infrared spectroscopy, is the observation of molecular rotational-vibrational transitions in many astrophysical environments. Particularly interesting and surprising in this context, many papers on modeling and laboratory spectroscopy at the workshop appear to indicate that astronomical observations are lagging a bit behind in this field. The papers are an interesting mix of reports from existing high resolution facilities, reports on modeling efforts of synthetic spectra and reports on laboratory spectra. In this sense, a fruitful exchange between molecular physics and astronomy was again accomplished and is documented in this volume.
Galaxy Formation
This second edition of Galaxy Formation is an up-to-date text on astrophysical cosmology, expounding the structure of the classical cosmological models from a contemporary viewpoint. This forms the background to a detailed study of the origin of structure and galaxies in the Universe. The derivations of many of the most important results are derived by simple physical arguments which illuminate the results of more advanced treatments. A very wide range of observational data is brought to bear upon these problems, including the most recent results from WMAP, the Hubble Space Telescope, galaxy surveys like the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and the 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey, studies of Type 1a supernovae, and many other observations.
Galaxies and How to Observe Them
Satisfies the need for a modern, comprehensive review in combining the three major aspects: the physical background on the nature and data of galaxies, the relevant instrumentation and viewing techniques, and finally the targets and their individual appearance in telescopes of various apertures. To illustrate the latter, a comprehensive sample of galaxies, including quasars, groups and clusters of galaxies is presented. This combination of theoretical knowledge and practical information guarantees successful observing sessions. The book could become a standard source on galaxy observing for all kinds of amateur observers, from the beginner to the experienced.
Focusing telescopes in nuclear astrophysics
This volume is the first of its kind on focusing gamma-ray telescopes. Forty-eight refereed papers provide a comprehensive overview of the scientific potential and technical challenges of this nascent tool for nuclear astrophysics. The book features articles dealing with pivotal technologies such as grazing incident mirrors, multilayer coatings, Laue- and Fresnel-lenses - and even an optic using the curvature of space-time. The volume also presents an overview of detectors matching the ambitious objectives of gamma ray optics, and facilities for operating such systems on the ground and in space. The extraordinary scientific potential of focusing gamma-ray telescopes for the study of the most powerful sources and the most violent events in the Universe is emphasized in a series of introductory articles.
Fisica solare = Solar physics
An introduction to Solar Physics, intended to illustrate to those who intend to approach this discipline (students, PhDs, researchers) the physical mechanisms underlying the complex phenomena observed on our closest star. It does not claim to be exhaustive (suffice it to say that solar physics spans a wide range of disciplines, such as nuclear physics, thermodynamics, electrodynamics, atomic and molecular physics, spectroscopy across all bands of the electromagnetic spectrum, magnetohydrodynamics, plasma physics, the development of new instrumentation, optics, etc.). Rather, a number of topics of fundamental relevance to the current study of the Sun have been selected (especially with regard to ground-based observations with large telescopes), and an attempt has been made to provide a general overview of these topics, including their historical evolution, without going into excessive detail. Since Solar Physics can rightfully be considered the "Rosetta Stone" of all Astrophysics, the volume can also be considered a valid introduction to this subject.
First Light in the Universe : Saas-Fee Advanced Course 36. Swiss Society for Astrophysics and Astronomy
The exploration of the first billion years of the history of the Universe, from the so-called Dark Ages to cosmic reionisation, represents one of the great challenges of contemporary astrophysics and one of the main drivers for future observational facilities. The book contains the elaborated notes of lectures given at the 36th Saas-Fee Advanced Course "First Light in the Universe" by three eminent scientists in the field: Abraham Loeb, Andrea Ferrara, and Richard Ellis. The formation of the first stars and black holes, the initial mass function, feedback effects, early dust formation, the history of cosmic star formation, distant galaxies, cosmic reionisation and the cosmic infrared background are the main topics treated. This book provides an accessible and up-to-date review of the field and will be useful to graduate students of astronomy, cosmologists, physicists and researchers.
Fare astronomia con piccoli telescopi = Are astronomy with small telescopes
Giant tools are not necessarily required to produce scientifically valid results in the field of astronomy. Even the amateur with a small telescope, with a diameter of only 8-9 cm, can contribute to the science of the sky by making useful observations of the Sun, the Moon, planets, comets, asteroids, double or variable stars, nebulae and star clusters. The manual of M.K. Gainer explains what the minimum equipment is (a small telescope, a computer, a simple digital camera), how to use it, and what are the appropriate techniques to be adopted in the observations. It also offers schemes for interpreting and reducing the collected data, as well as forms to be filled in and sent to international collection centers.
Exploring Ancient Skies : An Encyclopedic Survey of Archaeoastronomy
Exploring Ancient Skies brings together the methods of archaeology and the insights of modern astronomy to explore the science of astronomy as it was practiced in various cultures prior to the invention of the telescope. The book reviews an enormous and growing body of literature on the cultures of the ancient Mediterranean, the Far East, and the New World (particularly Mesoamerica), putting the ancient astronomical materials into their archaeological and cultural contexts. The authors begin with an overview of the field and proceed to essential aspects of naked-eye astronomy, followed by an examination of specific cultures. The book concludes by taking into account the purposes of ancient astronomy: astrology, navigation, calendar regulation, and (not least) the understanding of our place and role in the universe. Skies are recreated to display critical events as they would have appeared to ancient observers - events such as the supernova of 1054, the 'lion horoscope' or the 'Star of Bethlehem.'
Electronic Imaging in Astronomy : Detectors and Instrumentation
The second edition of Electronic Imaging in Astronomy: Detectors and Instrumentation describes the remarkable developments that have taken place in astronomical detectors and instrumentation in recent years – from the invention of the charge-coupled device (CCD) in 1970 to the current era of very large telescopes, such as the Keck 10-meter telescopes in Hawaii with their laser guide-star adaptive optics which rival the image quality of the Hubble Space Telescope. Authored by one of the world’s foremost experts on the design and development of electronic imaging systems for astronomy, this book has been written on several levels to appeal to a broad readership. Mathematical expositions are designed to encourage a wider audience, especially among the growing community of amateur astronomers with small telescopes with CCD cameras.
