Description:
The first edition of Hubble Vision was published in 1995, when the Hubble Space Telescope was already "the foremost observatory of our age." This second edition has been almost completely rewritten to emphasize the telescope's impressive list of new discoveries. The 100 new illustrations include many glorious images: exploding stars and colliding galaxies, the profound vision of the Hubble Deep Field, gravitational lenses, the impact of Comet Shoemaker-Levy on Jupiter, and pictures of other solar systems. But the book is not just a collection of pretty pictures; it's also an excellent introduction to astronomy. Since it describes both objects (from the level of the nearby planets to the level of the big bang) and instruments, it gives laypeople a particularly accurate idea of what astronomers actually do--and of how much fun they have doing it. Brandt is an astronomer at the University of Colorado and a principal investigator for the space telescope, while his collaborator Collins Petersen is a science writer with practical experience in astronomy. Their combined expertise results in a book that is authoritative but not daunting, gorgeous but not superficial. You may want to keep it on your coffee table, but you should also actually read it. --Mary Ellen Curtin
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