collins book

[alecras234]

Hi my name is Ash and i live in wales. I have recently bought a basic book on astronomy and i wan to know whether you think it's good to learn from? I like the format of the book as it's easy to read and understand. This is the book, you can click on the image of the book to look at a sample of whats inside.
I have taken some facts from the book, are they correct please?

How fast does the earth move around the sun? 66,000mph
How long does it take for the earth to orbit the sun? 365.25 days
Where does the Earth move quickest in its orbit? At perhelion
What is perhelion? Earths closest point to the sun
What is Aphelion? Earths furthest point from the sun
When was the solar system formed? 4.5 billion years ago.

[KingClinton]

Your link does not work for me?
Tells me the adress is not a functioning page on the site?

[Ruud]

Oh yes, the link doesn't work.

Never mind, have a look, Ash, at this free title: https://d3bxy9euw4e147.cloudfront.net/o ... V0J80E.pdf

It is quite an impressive introductory level textbook, dealing with many basic concepts of Astronomy. Over a thousand pages, very clearly written and with many illustrations.

The pdf is entirely free. Give it a try.

[Piet Le Roux]

Good day,
Is this the book ? : https://collins.co.uk/collections/astro ... 0008196271
The specific data in Astronomy books does change as new data becomes available, is there any reason to doubt the data?
Maybe this book could help : https://www.pdfdrive.com/the-handy-astr ... 15161.html

[alecras234]

Yes that book looks good but is the collins book that i have any good for getting facts from?

Ash

[KingClinton]

Yes that book looks good but is the collins book that i have any good for getting facts from?

Ash

Yes, I doubt there would be much that is not still valid from that book.

[alecras234]

would you recommend this book?

Should i just get information about stars, planets from slooh.com?

[KingClinton]

What sort of info is it that you want?
For stars and planets the web is full of great information.

[alecras234]

i want to learn more about our solar system, stars and a few galaxies. I know a little bit about the solar system, the order of the planets and that's it.

[KingClinton]

If you have not already done so, download a free program called stellarium.
From that you can learn more about the constellations and where and when to see them. It also gives some info on stars and galaxies.

As far the solar system goes, not much has changed. We have 8 planets and a Sun.
I might suggest you take a look at the documentaries by Professor Brian Cox called "The planets", very informative and up to date.
It recently aired on BBC 2
Here is a link to one.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source= ... 0405376182

For galaxies and other deep sky there are plenty of good websites, NASA, Sinbad are but a few.
Like I said, Google is your friend.
A program like Stellarium should have the basic info and you can research more from there.

Books will have the latest available info at the time of going to press.
The more recent the book the more likely it is to be up to date.

If there are specific questions you have, feel free to ask on the forums. We are always willing to help where we can.

[Voyageur]

would you recommend this book?

Should i just get information about stars, planets from slooh.com?

When trying to learn a subject, I think it is helpful to start with only a few materials and work with those rather than getting lost in lots of different sources.

That book is a collection of loosely-organized astronomy information/statistics, and would likely be a fun source of somewhat random facts about space. I think you would enjoy it; it's almost free, and would give you lots of interesting tidbits to learn.

But it isn't a well-organized textbook to teach you the subject of astronomy in a logical way. The Patrick Moore book you already have is good for that, so you should be okay.

[alecras234]

so should i stick with the patrick moore book? But it's out of date, is the information up to date? would this book help?

[Voyageur]

so should i stick with the patrick moore book? But it's out of date, is the information up to date? would this book help?

I think this is just a Kindle version of the book you have. I don’t think the basic astronomy information in the book you have is out of date.

[alecras234]

i've decided to read the planets by Brian cox, it has good reviews. Can i get lots of facts from it, as it discusses the creation of the solar system which interests me.

[alecras234]

[I was thinking, should i start with learning about the Messier catalogue rather then learning about the solar system? I don't know what facts are correct. Which book is good to get up to date facts from please about the planets sun and stars??

Ash

[Voyageur]

All the books you asked about are fine, Ash. Pick one and use it and don’t worry, none of them are out of date for facts about the solar system.

If you want to learn about the Messier objects, a great book is “The Messier Objects” by Steven J. O’Meara.