[Friends_of_SSASTROS] It's been cloudy lately...

[Mike McCabe]

...so what is an astronomy enthusiast to do? Why, read of course!

Book Review – Parallax,by Alan Hirshfeld

Since time immemorial humans have sought to understand thescale of the cosmos and their place in it. Records from as far back asArchimedes and Aristarchus reflect their postulations on the matter, andvirtually every great thinker since has weighed in on the subject in some way,shape or form.

The key to understanding the scale of the universe andEarth’s place in it, they all knew, was to somehow figure out the distance tothe stars. This key element proved to be one of the most elusive quarries tocapture, and even once the telescope was invented it proved no mean feat toachieve. In fact it wouldn’t be until the mid-19th century that the questto find the distance to a star would be conquered, and even beyond that itwould take until the late 20th century to see the distance a broadgroup of stars measured.
In his book Parallax, Dr. Alan Hirshfeld weavesa tale of mystery, suspense, adventure and intrigue as he looks back at thestruggle to figure out exactly what it would take to accurately measure thedistance to a star, and how we finally got there. Virtually every astronomer ofnote took a stab at it from the invention of the telescope in the early 1600’s,up until the mid-1800’s when it was finally achieved. He delves into the livesand worlds of all these men of science, as well as the folks who crafted theinstruments that finally made the task possible. Hirshfeld’s research isimpeccable, and his writing style engaging and smooth flowing.  This book is a must-read for any astronomyhistory buff, and any amateur astronomer will gain a keener understanding oftheir hobby from the contents of this tome.

You can still buy the book new in hardcover for about $20,and used in both hard cover and paperback at a multitude of sites for pennies onthe dollar. Of course there’s also the local library network which may be ableto secure a copy for you.

Mike’s Rating: Highly Recommended Reading


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://ssastros.org/pipermail/friends_of_ssastros_ssastros.org/attachments/20240130/5023e0b1/attachment.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: 1706640362084blob.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 16250 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://ssastros.org/pipermail/friends_of_ssastros_ssastros.org/attachments/20240130/5023e0b1/attachment.jpg>