Exploring the Night Sky: The Equinox Astronomy Guide for Beginners

Features

• Reading level: Young Adult
  
• Cover Type: Paperback with 72 pages
• Published by: Firefly Books February 1, 1987
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0920656668
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0920656662
• Book Dimensions: 8.2 x 8.1 x 0.4 inches
• Weighs: 6.4 ounces

From School Library Journal
Grade 4-6 ``If starships are ever developed, there will be no shortage of destinations.'' With clarity and enthusiasm, Dickinson presents a look at the high frontier, combining a ``universe in forty jumps'' sort of tourtaking readers from the Moon (1.3 light-seconds) to the galactic field in general (300 million light-years)with a quick spin about the solar system, adding season-by-season charts of the salient planets, stars, and constellations visible from North America. Dozens of color paintings and some photographs accompany the text, and there is a page of advice on choosing and using binoculars and telescopes. The information is readily available elsewhere, but not so engagingly presented. Thus this is a good additional purchase for heavily-used astronomy collections. John Peters, New York Public Library
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Description


Exploring the Night Sky is aimed at novice star gazers anxious to expand their astronomical repertoire beyond the Big and Little Dippers. Dickinson has designed a superb introduction to astronomy that is clear, concise, gorgeously illustrated, and very "user friendly" no matter what the child's age.

Reader Reviews
This book is great for anyone who (like me) has never been able to figure out stars beyond the big dipper or to understand what are the relationships of scale between stars, galaxies, clusters, etc.... Adults (including me and my father, age 73) will enjoy this book as much as (probably even more) than children. Not only it contains celestial maps that make it easy to find the stars, but also it gives some extremely useful tricks for finding them (i.e. using your fist to estimate ten degrees of arc). Finally, it gives some extremely well narrated and illustrated examples of relative astronomical dimensions, starting from the distance between the earth and the moon and ending with the distances between galaxies. Definitely the best first book to buy to get a clear idea what our universe is all about.