Authors: Ian Ridpath & Wil Tirion Paperback: 400 pages In this
new edition of their classic guide, Ian Ridpath and Wil Tirion
bring the night sky down to earth with brand new sky charts,
diagrams, and photos that enrich the clear, engaging text. Stars
and Planets will delight both latent astronomers who have yet to
touch a telescope and the more star-savvy who have spent many a
night outside craning their necks behind a lens. The
introduction presents the basics of astronomical observation
while answering such questions as: How did constellations come
to be? Do the stars within them have anything to do with one
another? Do stars really flicker? Next comes the book's
centerpiece: an excellent series of maps of the night sky from
hemisphere to hemisphere, month to month and, above all, charts
showing all 88 constellations, including some 5,000 stars. The
text vividly relates the human history behind each constellation
and notes their most prominent stars while offering sundry
stimulating facts. The second secti