• A guide to viewing stars, the moon, planets, meteors, comets, and aurora through binoculars
• Features a foreword by renowned astronomer and writer David Levy
• Includes a complete guide to current binocular brands and models and explains what to look for in each season

Many people assume that amateur stargazers must invest hundreds or even thousands of dollars in equipment before they can enjoy the wonders of the night sky. The truth is, though, that all you need is a simple pair of binoculars. This handy, easy-to-follow guide explains how to observe everything from the moon to meteor showers with binoculars and provides safety tips for viewing eclipses. It also includes separate sections for winter, spring, summer, and fall that give advice on what to look for and how to optimize your viewing. Ideal for budding astronomers of all ages, Binocular Stargazing is the perfect way to see the night sky through new eyes.

This volume collects papers presented, as invited and contributed talks or posters, at the workshop on "The NEW Rosetta targets. Obs- vations, simulations and instrument performances", which was held in CaprionOctober13-15,2003. Morethan100scientistscoveringdi?erent ?elds, such as optical and radio astronomy, laboratory experiments and modelling of comet physics and processes, as well as several Principal Investigators of the instruments on board Rosetta, participated to this highly interdisciplinary workshop. The Rosetta mission was programmed for launch in January 2003 towards the short period comet 46P/Wirtanen and the asteroids 140 Siwa and 4979 Otawara. However, due to problems with the Ariane V launcher, the launch was postponed and the European Space Agency had to identify new mission targets, suitable for a launch window at the end of February 2004. The short period comet 67P/Churyumov- Gerasimenkowaschosenasprimarytargetforthenewbaseline, together with one or two asteroids to be selected, depending on the ?v available after the Rosetta probe interplanetary orbit insertion. After the succe- ful launch of the mission on March 2nd, 2004, the new baseline foresees a double ?y-by with asteroids 21 Lutetia and 2867 Steins, on the way towards the rendezvous with the primary target, that will be reached in 2014. The papers included in this volume cover di?erent complementary ?elds: observations of the new Rosetta targets, laboratory experiments, theoreticalsimulationofcometenvironmentandprocesses,performances of the experiments on board Rosetta spacecraft, also in view of the new mission target(s). Afterthepostponementofthemissionlaunch,comet67P/Churyumov- Gerasimenko was the subject of an intense observation campaign, - tween February and June 2003.

This book describes numerical simulations of collisions between asteroids, based on a unique numerical code developed by the author. The code accurately solves the elastic dynamic equations and describes the effects of fracture and friction, which makes it possible to investigate the shapes of impact outcomes produced by asteroid collisions and subsequent gravitational accumulation of fragments. The author parallelizes the code with high parallelization efficiency; accordingly, it can be used to conduct high-resolution simulations with the aid of supercomputers and clarify the shapes of small remnants produced through the catastrophic destruction of asteroids. The author demonstrates that flat asteroids can only be produced by impacts involving objects with similar mass and low velocity, which suggests that the flat asteroids in our solar system were created in the planet formation era and have kept their shapes until today. The author also shows that asteroid collisions under certain conditions can produce the extremely elongated shape of an interstellar minor body, 1I/'Oumuamua. In brief, the book offers a comprehensive investigation of asteroid impacts and shapes, making it a uniquely valuable resource.

This book describes our gradual awareness of a vast, previously concealed Universe. It is a story of expanding horizons and the discovery of invisible worlds. This voyage of discovery is presented within universal themes, such as invisibility, motion, content, form, impermanence, violence and emptiness, beginnings and ends. These are topics that concern us all, helping us take the Universe personally, so each chapter begins with the human aspect of some of these themes. The book is additionally broadened by including the perceptions of artists, poets and writers, as well as with line drawings that forcefully compact a scientific insight.

Edith Alicia M ller (1918-1995) was the IAU General Secretary from 1976 to 1979, the first woman to have this responsibility. Many friends, students and colleagues, and others who have met Edith at different occasions, give in this book their memories of her. Her fundamental work in solar physics concerned the chemical composition of the Sun, the time variation of its infra-red spectrum, and its thermal structure. Her interests were, however, far broader than that. She was heavily involved in international work for the teaching of astronomy and for the exchange program of young astronomers.

The book is an introduction to practical astrometry, dealing with the determination of positions, motions, distances and dimensions of celestial bodies ranging from quasars to artificial satellites. The main part is devoted to the description of instruments and observing techniques, and also includes the basic properties of optical instruments and a detailed description of the atmospheric effects on observations. A brief summary of the main phenomena in positional astronomy and of data treatment is given. Although classical astrometric methods are described, emphasis is put on new, more precise techniques such as CCD, optical and radio interferometry, space astrometry, etc. For this 2nd edition, the release of the Hipparcos and Tycho catalogs, the rise in CCD astrometry and the adoption of a new celestial reference frame by the IAU led to a significant modification of the text. And, especially, the outlook for astrometry has been completely rewritten.

In a distilled and pedagogical fashion, the contributions to this volume of the famous summer school in Les Houches cover the recent developments in supersymmetric string theory, the gauge theory/string theory correspondence and string duality. Further chapters deal with quantum gravity and D-brane geometry. Black hole mechanics and cosmology are treated too, as well as the AdS-CFT correspondence. The book is a comprehensive introduction to the recent developments in string/M-theory and quantum gravity. It addresses graduate students in physics and astrophysics.

The Physics of Solar and Stellar Coronae provides the first comprehensive summary of the physical processes and phenomena occurring in solar and stellar coronae as observed at X-ray and other wavelengths. The book provides an early summary of the spectacular new solar X-ray observations being obtained with the Yohkoh satellite that are dramatically changing our understanding of the dynamics of the solar corona. With the perspective of two years' observations at X-ray and extreme ultraviolet wavelengths by the ROSAT satellite, many authors present new insights into the basic physical processes occurring in the coronae of stars across the Hertzsprung--Russell Diagram including both pre-main sequence and post-main sequence stars. Detailed models for the hot plasmas typically contained in magnetic loops in both stellar and solar coronae are presented to explain X-ray data obtained with the earlier X-ray instruments on Skylab, SMM, Einstein, and EXOSAT. The book includes papers on coronal observations obtained at other wavelengths and papers of the history of Palermo Astronomical Observatory. The Physics of Solar and Stellar Coronae is intended for researchers in the fields of solar physics and stellar astrophysics and will be a useful resource book for graduate level astrophysics courses. (ABSTRACT) This is the first comprehensive summary of the physical processes and phenomena occurring in solar and stellar coronae. Spectacular new solar X-ray observations by the Yohkoh satellite and stellar observations by ROSAT are highlighted, together with theoretical papers and detailed analyses of earlier data from Skylab, SMM, Einstein, and EXOSAT. Included are papers on coronal observations at other wavelengths and on the history of Palermo Astronomical Observatory.

The International Conference, Orbis Scientiae 1996, focused on the topics: The Neutrino Mass, Light Cone Quantization, Monopole Condensation, Dark Matter, and Gravitational Waves which we have adopted as the title of these proceedings. Was there any exciting news at the conference? Maybe, it depends on who answers the question. There was an almost unanimous agreement on the overall success of the conference as was evidenced by the fact that in the after-dinner remarks by one of us (BNK) the suggestion of organizing the conference on a biannual basis was presented but not accepted: the participants wanted the continuation of the tradition to convene annually. We shall, of course, comply. The expected observation of gravitational waves will constitute the most exciting vindication of Einstein's general relativity. This subject is attracting the attention of the experimentalists and theorists alike. We hope that by the first decade of the third millennium or earlier, gravitational waves will be detected, opening the way for a search for gravitons somewhere in the universe, presumably through the observations in the CMBR. The theoretical basis of the graviton search will take us to quantum gravity and eventually to the modification of general relativity to include the Planck scale behavior of gravity -at energies 19 of the order of 10 Ge V.

The conversion of energy generated in the Sun's interior creates its hot corona and a wealth of dynamical phenomena such as flares and mass ejections. Based on recent significant progress in understanding magnetic reconnection and a wealth of new observations of energetic particle signatures from the Sun, the present volume reviews the current theoretical and experimental status in the field. Paying attention to both the details and the broader picture, this book addresses both the experienced researcher as well as nonspecialist researchers from related areas and postgraduate students in astrophsics.

The reviews and highlights included in this book of proceedings of the plenary sessions, of the Joint European and National Astronomical Meeting (2002), cover some of the major fields and projects which will determine the research in astronomy in the next decades. The highlights have been presented by young astronomers from several European countries, selected from a list of proposals submitted by different institutions across Europe.

This book reflects the multi-disciplinarity and interaction that took place in the meeting. By including reviews on space and ground-based observational programmes, the scientific topics are associated with the new observational efforts in instrumentation. These projects, under development, are expected to drive the research in the coming decades. With such a wide and interdisciplinary coverage this book provides a comprehensive review on the present status and expectations for some of the major fields in astrophysics.

This work is of great relevance for students and researchers alike, as it provides an introductory approach to a wide range of fields in Astronomy, but also includes some detailed reviews for the major topics in each field.

This is the eleventh volume in the series Light Scattering Reviews, devoted to current knowledge of light scattering problems and both experimental and theoretical research techniques related to their solution. The focus of this volume is to describe modern advances in radiative transfer and light scattering optics. This book brings together the most recent studies on light radiative transfer in the terrestrial atmosphere, while also reviewing environmental polarimetry. The book is divided into nine chapters: * the first four chapters review recent advances in modern radiative transfer theory and provide detailed descriptions of radiative transfer codes (e.g., DISORT and CRTM). Approximate solutions of integro-differential radiative transfer equations for turbid media with different shapes (spheres, cylinders, planeparallel layers) are detailed; * chapters 5 to 8 focus on studies of light scattering by single particles and radially inhomogeneous media; * the final chapter discusses the environmental polarimetry of man-made objects.

Planetary Aeronomy is a modern and concise introduction to the underlying physical and chemical processes that govern the formation and evolution of the upper atmospheres of planets. The general approach employed permits consideration of the growing number of extrasolar planets, the detailed observation of which will become possible over the next decades. The book explains the physics behind many atmospheric processes, which are relevant for the evolution of planetary atmospheres and their water inventories, and also contains useful scaling laws and analytical expressions that can be applied to any planet. Readers thus gain insight into the evolution of terrestrial planets and their long-time habitability, atmospheric stability, etc. This volume can be used both as graduate textbook for students wishing to specialize in the field as well as succinct compendium for researchers in the field.

The present monograph as well as the next one (Dorman, M2005) is a result of more than 50 years working in cosmic ray (CR) research. After graduation in December 1950 Moscow Lomonosov State University (Nuclear and Elementary Particle Physics Division, the Team of Theoretical Physics), my supervisor Professor D. I. Blokhintsev planned for me, as a winner of a Red Diploma, to continue my education as an aspirant (a graduate student) to prepare for Ph. D. in his very secret Object in the framework of what was in those time called the Atomic Problem. To my regret the KGB withheld permission, and I, together with other Jewish students who had graduated Nuclear Divisions of Moscow and Leningrad Universities and Institutes, were faced with a real prospect of being without any work. It was our good fortune that at that time there was being brought into being the new Cosmic Ray Project (what at that time was also very secret, but not as secret as the Atomic Problem), and after some time we were directed to work on this Project. It was organized and headed by Prof. S. N. Vernov (President of All-Union Section of Cosmic Rays) and Prof. N. V. Pushkov (Director of IZMIRAN); Prof. E. L. Feinberg headed the theoretical part of the Project.

What do we know about the origins of the Universe, and more important, how do we know it? In a small, easy-to-read package, this book introduces you to all of the important ideas about the Big Bang and its consequences. Craig Hogan explains what happened in the early days of the universe, why we think it's expanding (and how the expansion can look the same from everyplace at once), different ways the universe could end, and the meaning of such terms as "cosmic inflation," "cosmic background radiation," and "dark matter." For everyone who has always wondered just what the cosmologists are talking about but could never find the basics explained clearly and simply, this is the book to read.

Pulsating and eccentric binary stars play a fundamentally important role in deciphering the mass distribution within stars. The present volume reviews the fundamental concepts of both radial and nonradial oscillations in the stars, including the Sun. Helio- and astroseismological results are reviewed, from the basics to the most recent developments. A new theory is presented, which seems to explain the mechanism of the light and radial velocity variations of recently discovered Ap stars. This textbook covers almost all kinds of variable stars of widely different characteristics. It will serve as a reference text for a very long time to come, not only for specialists but also for undergraduate students of physics and astronomy.

The exploration of the first billion years of the history of the Universe represents one of the great challenges of contemporary astrophysics. During this time, the first structures start to form the first stars, galaxies, and possibly also soon the first quasars. At the same time, light comes to the dark, neutral Universe. This book contains the worked out lectures given at the 36th Saas-Fee Advanced Course "First Light in the Universe" by three eminent scientists in the field.

The 157th IAU Symposium "The Cosmic Dynamo" was entirely dedicated to dynamo processes, which are fundamental to all cosmic scales. Dynamo theory concerns one of the few truly key questions of recent cosmic physics. A complicated interplay of rotation, magnetism and turbulence determines stellar and galactic activity for almost all the short and medium time scales. Behind these multiform phenomena, the cosmic dynamo works in various guises, all involving inductive and dissipative equilibria in rotating turbulent cosmic plasmas. This book presents an up-to-date survey on investigations and results of dynamo theory and related observations. It is intended for graduate scientists working in the field of cosmical magnetism and its related problems, especially convection, turbulence and, more generally, nonlinear physics.

The recent scientific efforts in Astrophysics & Cosmology have brought a revolution to our understanding of the Cosmos. Amazing results is the outcome of amazing experiments! The huge scientific, technological & financial effort that has gone into building the 10-m class telescopes as well as many space and balloon observatories, essential to observe the multitude of cosmic phenomena in their manifestations at different wavelengths, from gamma-rays to the millimetre and the radio, has given and is still giving its fruits of knowledge.
These recent scientific achievements in Observational and Theoretical Cosmology were presented in the "Multiwavelength Cosmology" conference that took place on beautiful Mykonos island in the Aegean between 17 and 20 June 2003. More than 180 Cosmologists from all over the world gathered for a four-day intense meeting in which recent results from large ground based surveys (AAT/2-df, SLOAN) and space missions (WMAP, Chandra, XMM, ISO, HST) were presented and debated, providing a huge impetus to our knowledge of the Cosmos.
The future of the subject (experiments, and directions of research) was also discussed. The conference was devoted mostly on the constraints on Cosmological models and galaxy formation theories that arise from the study of the high redshift Universe, from clusters of galaxies, and their evolution, from the cosmic microwave background, the large-scale structure and star-formation history.

The aim of this interdisciplinary study is to reconstruct the evolution of our changing conceptions of time in the light of scientific discoveries. It will adopt a new perspective and organize the material around three central themes, which run through our history of time reckoning: cosmology and regularity; stasis and flux; symmetry and asymmetry. It is the physical criteria that humans choose - relativistic effects and time-symmetric equations or dynamic-kinematic effects and asymmetric conditions - that establish our views on the nature of time. This book will defend a dynamic rather than a static view of time.

In view of the current and forthcoming observational data on pulsar wind nebulae, this book offers an assessment of the theoretical state of the art of modelling them. The expert authors also review the observational status of the field and provide an outlook for future developments. During the last few years, significant progress on the study of pulsar wind nebulae (PWNe) has been attained both from a theoretical and an observational perspective, perhaps focusing on the closest, more energetic, and best studied nebula: the Crab, which appears in the cover. Now, the number of TeV detected PWNe is similar to the number of characterized nebulae observed at other frequencies over decades of observations. And in just a few years, the Cherenkov Telescope Array will increase this number to several hundreds, actually providing an essentially complete account of TeV emitting PWNe in the Galaxy. At the other end of the multi-frequency spectrum, the SKA and its pathfinder instruments, will reveal thousands of new pulsars, and map in exquisite detail the radiation surrounding them for several hundreds of nebulae. By carefully reviewing the state of the art in pulsar nebula research this book prepares scientists and PhD students for future work and progress in the field.

Adaptive optics allows the theoretical limit of angular resolution to be achieved from a large telescope, despite the presence of turbulence. Thus an eight meter class telescope, such as one of the four in the Very Large Telescope operated by ESO in Chile, will in future be routinely capable of an angular resolution of almost 0.01 arcsec, compared tot he present resolution of about 0.5 arcsec for conventional imaging in good condition. All the world's major telescopes either have adaptive optics or are in the process of building AO systems. It turns out that a reasonable fraction of the sky can be observed using adaptive optics, with moderately good imaging quality, provided imaging in done in the near IR. To move out of the near IR, with its relatively poor angular resolution, astronomers need a laser guide star. There is a layer of Na atoms at approximately 90 km altitude that can be excited by a laser to produce such a source, or Rayleigh scattering can be employed lower in the atmosphere. But the production and use of laser guide stars is not trivial, and the key issues determining their successful implementation are discussed here, including the physics of the Na atom, the cone effect, tilt determination, sky coverage, and numerous potential astronomical applications.

Living material contains about twenty different sorts of atom combined into a set of relatively simple molecules. Astrobiologists tend to believe that abiotic mater ial will give rise to life in any place where these molecules exist in appreciable abundances and where physical conditions approximate to those occurring here on Earth. We think this popular view is wrong, for it is not the existence of the building blocks of life that is crucial but the exceedingly complicated structures in which they are arranged in living forms. The probability of arriving at biologically significant arrangements is so very small that only by calling on the resources of the whole universe does there seem to be any possibility of life originating, a conclusion that requires life on the Earth to be a minute component of a universal system. Some think that the hugely improbable transition from non-living to living mat ter can be achieved by dividing the transition into many small steps, calling on a so-called 'evolutionary' process to bridge the small steps one by one. This claim turns on semantic arguments which seek to replace the probability for the whole chain by the sum of the individual probabilities of the many steps, instead of by their product. This is an error well known to those bookies who are accustomed to taking bets on the stacking of horse races. But we did not begin our investigation from this point of view."