On a clear night, the vastness and beauty of the star-filled sky is awe inspiring. In Stargazing: Astronomy without a Telescope Patrick Moore, Britain's best known astronomer, tells you all you need to know about the universe visible to the naked eye. With the aid of charts and illustrations, he explains how to "read" the stars, to know which constellations lie overhead, their trajectory throughout the seasons, and the legends ascribed to them. In a month-by-month guide he describes using detailed star maps of the night skies of both the northern and southern hemispheres. He also takes a look...

Drawing on his vast knowledge and direct experience of most of the key events in astronomy and space exploration during this century, Patrick Moore takes a sideways look at the historical reports and contemporary thought behind a wide range of astronomical topics. The Wandering Astronomer presents his personal accounts of the towering characters of 20th-century astronomy, intriguing facts about puzzling astronomical phenomena, and amusing stories about the quirkier side of astronomy and space exploration. This collection of essays covers everything from the case of vanishing planets to UFOs...

In a year that will probably be remembered almost as much for books about the millennium as for the turn of 2000 A.D itself, Patrick Moore's Millennium Yearbook celebrates.....well, the wrong millennium This thoroughly entertaining book - which is for everyone, not just astronomers - contains articles on King Alfred's chronological work, reviews of the new Star Catalogue by the Arab Al-Sufi and the latest edition of Ptolemy's Almagast. And foreshadowing the change to metric units by 1000 years, the book uses arabic numbers instead of Roman - but there is a conversion table if you have...

Although transits of planets across the Sun are rare (only Mercury and Venus orbit the Sun closer than us, and so can transit the Sun's disc) amateur astronomers can observe, record and image other kinds of transit, which are very much more frequent. Transit is in two parts, the first telling the fascinating story of the early scientific expeditions to observe transits. The second part is for practical observers, and explains how to observe transits of all sorts - even transits of aircraft as they fly between the observer and the Sun

any popular books upon astronomy have been written during the Mpast few years, but most of them cater either for the casual dabbler who is content to learn from the depths of his armchair or else for the serious amateur who already knows the main facts.What I have done, or tried to do, is to strike a happy mean. This book has been aimed at the needs of the beginner who knows nothing whatsoever, but who is nevertheless anxious to make a start with what equipment he can collect at limited cost. All astronomers, professional or amateur, were beginners once, and all have had to draw upon the...

A total eclipse of the Sun is due in August 1999. It will attract alot of interest because - unusually - it will be visible in much of Europe and the UK. A total Solar Eclipse is always fascinating. This book is for everyone that wants to know 1. What a Solar Eclipse is 2. The phenomena one can expect to see 3. How to photograph an eclipse using a variety of methods 4. How to plan for an eclipse expedition. The book not only covers the 1999 eclipse but also past and future eclipses which we can look forward to. This book is also interesting to "armchair astronomers" as it contains alot of...

Eyes on the Universe is an illustrated history of the telescope, beginning with pre-telescopic observatories and the refractors of Galileo, Lippershey and Digges, and ending with the most modern instruments including - of course - the Hubble Space Telescope. Written by Dr Patrick Moore CBE, to celebrate the 40th Anniversary of the world's longest-running television programme, the BBC's The Sky at Night, the book takes an enthusiastic look at the development of astronomical telescopes. It provides its readers with a fascinating overview of the way astronomical telescopes have evolved...

In Small Astronomical Observatories, Patrick Moore has collected descriptions of amateur and small professional observatories currently in use in Europe and America, showing how many astronomers have built their own observatory, often with effective and sometimes extraordinary improvisations to reduce the cost. There is a photograph of each, along with details of its construction and a foreword written by Patrick Moore. In addition to providing a fascinating study for its own sake, Small Astronomical Observatories offers a unique fund of ideas and practical details for...