Stacy Jo of Pacifica said -
>Catch up on those great astro books that have been sitting around...
Just finished Cosmic Butterflies by Sun Kwok. Had gotten it for
Christmas last year and snuck up on it slow. What a book. First off,
it's a great coffee table book, with lots of hitherto unseen Hubble
shots of some really beautiful planetaries. The text not only
explains plenty about the life cycle, chemistry, shell structure, and
other facets of these fascinating objects, Kwok also goes over the
history of developing models in a very engaging style, taking names
and numbers and dates. He gives a peek into how astronomy gets done,
lets on about how much fun they have in the good moments, like when a
colleague stormed into a conference session with news of a brand new
discovery.
Here's the cool surprise for us TACos: at the very end of the book,
Kwok says, "...next time you're doing a backyard telescope session,
peek at the Ring Nebula." He knows who his audience is! In the
appendices there's a list of eye candy PNe, and sure enough there's a
set of 'em I need to go catch, in Monoceros, Puppis, all over.
Thanks for the nudge, Stace, had it in mind to post a plug for this
really fine book.
Jamie
-- Jamie Dillon <*> speech pathologist jamie_dillon@No-Spam "_____" -- Harpo Marx