Fundamental Astronomy

By: H. Karttunen

Book Overview

Now in its sixth edition, this successful undergraduate textbook gives a well-balanced and comprehensive introduction to the topics of classical and modern astronomy. While emphasizing both the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 3540341439
• ISBN13: 9783540341437
• Release Date: January 2007
• Publisher: Springer
• Length: 510 Pages
• Weight: 3.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 8.8" x 11.2"

Customer Reviews

Great fundamental Astronomy Text

As an amateur astronomer who loves theory and the math that goes with it, I found this text to be utterly exquisite for helping me recapture a lot of my old math skills. While the real amount of calculus needed in the text was not overtly taxing, I did find the text very useful indeed for requiring the use of a strong algebra background, along with lots of Trig, and of course, geometry and Calculus. The problems in this book were intriguing, challenging and just awesome in every respect. For example, I found myself for the first time since I can recall, drawing Trig and geometrical diagrams to assist in visualizing a particular problem as an aid toward the ultimate answer! These problems, all of them mathematical in nature, are extremely interesting and encourage you to make a sketch of the phenomenon at hand in order to arrive at a solution. And in addition to the problems, the text has very useful solved examples that show you how a particular problem calculation is reached. You really do learn a lot just from these examples. I think the book might have benefitted from having even more exercises in it, which to me would make it even more useful for a semester university course in introductory Astrophysics. Instead of having 73 exercises, perhaps 150-200 problems would have been more 'whetting' to an appetite like mine is for Astronomy. But, I can heartily recommend that this book, if completed and all the problems worked, will definitely prepare one for a more challenging text with more Math and problems! The authors could only improve this thing with more text length and more problems, as far as I am concerned. The appendixes and Tables in the back give the student a little bit of good background to the Math needed in the book as well. This text is a complete WINNER in the category of INTRODUCTORY TEXTBOOKS for the beginning course in college Astronomy!

A Fundamental Astronomy Reference

Fundamental Astronomy is both the title and an excellent description of the content of this handsome hard back volume. For the book to reach the fourth edition, it must be hitting a niche in the market. The preface to the first edition in 1987 identifies that market as a "university textbook for a first course in astronomy" which is also suited for serious amateurs who "find the popular texts too trivial". In my opinion, that description from the original preface is "spot on" and makes this volume a must-buy for any serious amateur looking for a comprehensive overview of matters astronomical. The book covers the basics of astronomy, stellar astrophysics and mainly features of our Universe which are relatively close-at-hand. Large scale structure and cosmology are less than ten percent of the content. It covers all topics to considerable depth, far more so than most publications aimed at a general readership. It is mathematical, although the maths is present largely for academic completeness, and can be skimmed or by-passed as required without reducing to any great extent, the utility provided. Its usefulness for education purposes is enhanced by worked examples in each section followed by exercises. Within its 19 major sections, it contains much relevant and dare I say fundamental material. The book is well illustrated with mainly monochrome plates which are relevant to the subject at hand plus many carefully constructed, concise graphics and illustrations. This is a comprehensive reference volume, which will age but slowly on any serious amateur's book shelf, as the subject matter is largely timeless.

A Great Astronomy Textbook!

.This is a great and comprehensive primary textbook for a student. It is massive introduction to the huge field of astronomical study, and as such contains much of the basic concepts and plenty of hands-on exercises.I have been mainly using the Finnish version, but having also browsed through the English one I can safely say that the two differ from each other only minimally and thus my experiences with the original hold true with the translation too.As an end note I might point out, that even though having studied astronomy at the university, it is by no means my area of expertise: I'm majoring in linguistics. That alone, I think, proves how clear and well-written this tome really is: even an Arts students can read it and actually understand and learn! ;)

Fundamental to students

I am an astronomy student, i like so much this book, because i can laern all about the fundamental ideas in astrophisics, is so easy to read, so clear and it have a wonderful content.The items of this book are so importants to any student in astronomy, and is very interesting to the other people, if they like study the universe.I like so much the part about CCD, and the study of spectrography, I realy want to have this book with me.Thank you so much.Pablo Cuartas.