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

[fiddledance]

Very cool Mike—thank you!

On Tue, Jan 30, 2024 at 1:48 PM Mike McCabe <cartech2000 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> ...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 the scale of the
> cosmos and their place in it. Records from as far back as Archimedes and
> Aristarchus reflect their postulations on the matter, and virtually 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 and Earth’s place in
> it, they all knew, was to somehow figure out the distance to the stars.
> This key element proved to be one of the most elusive quarries to capture,
> and even once the telescope was invented it proved no mean feat to achieve.
> In fact it wouldn’t be until the mid-19th century that the quest to find
> the distance to a star would be conquered, and even beyond that it would
> take until the late 20th century to see the distance a broad group of
> stars measured.
> In his book *Parallax*, Dr. Alan Hirshfeld weaves a tale of mystery,
> suspense, adventure and intrigue as he looks back at the struggle to figure
> out exactly what it would take to accurately measure the distance to a
> star, and how we finally got there. Virtually every astronomer of note 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 lives
> and worlds of all these men of science, as well as the folks who crafted
> the instruments that finally made the task possible. Hirshfeld’s research
> is impeccable, and his writing style engaging and smooth flowing.  This
> book is a must-read for any astronomy history buff, and any amateur
> astronomer will gain a keener understanding of their hobby from the
> contents of this tome.
>
> [image: Inline image]
>
> 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 on the
> dollar. Of course there’s also the local library network which may be able
> to secure a copy for you.
>
> Mike’s Rating: *Highly Recommended Reading*
>
>
>
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