The best Astronomy & Astrophysics books: Reddit reviews

From 3.5 billion Reddit comments

This book might help. (I haven't read it, I just remember seeing it and putting it on my Amazon wish-list for a mythical time when I'm off work for long enough that reading code recreationally seems like a good idea.)

The Apollo Guidance Compute: Architecture and Operation is an excellent explanation of how the AGC functioned. Highly recomended. For those of you at university, your institution's library probably has access to the PDFs through Springer Link.

Actually, this would be the book:

The Apollo Guidance Computer: Architecture and Operation

It's actually really good, but holy COW is it dense and technical.

He can get a used copy of the Fundamentals of Astrodynamics on Amazon for just $16.95

"Turn Left At Orion" by Guy Consolmagno and Dan M. Davis. Can be found on Amazon here.

EDIT: Apparently there is an updated version of the book (5th edition).

EDIT 2: watch the delivery time - the link in my former edit says ships within 1-3 months. Might not be the best choice for under the xmas tree.

A good place to start is Introduction to Modern Astrophysics, by Carroll and Ostlie: https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Modern-Astrophysics-2nd/dp/0805304029 It's a good upper-undergrad to grad-level textbook that covers a lot of topics.

I mean Dragon with a Second stage is on the cover of Rocket Propulsion Elements in the eighth edition
and a F9 Dance Floor on the ninth

that's a kind of big one already

Play Kerbal Space Program (seriously). Then pick a book (like this one), it's a much better way to go.

First thing might be to consider what it is about astronomy that interests you the most. For example, steering towards a career in research astronomy is very different to just wanting to be a hobby backyard stargazer; and being a backyard stargazer is very different to being an amateur astrophotographer.

If it's the stargazing aspect you're most interested in, a small Newtonian reflector telescope and a copy of the book <em>Turn Left At Orion</em> is a great place to start.

Meh. You’ll use university physics 5ever, I kept my thermo book, I kept Griffith’s E&M, and I would advise keeping any bvp, numerical analysis, and complex analysis books you get. Oh and BOB if you go into Astro.

And gravity will be exponentially increasing with every millimeter of your body as your approach. You'd definitely notice the stretching and pulling of your body as your approach the event horizon. Black Holes and Time Warps did a great job at describing this for me to understand.

Well 1) you didn’t tell us what you’re learning out of and 2) if you transfer, your credits might not.

But generally, with my physics students, I use University Physics, Introduction to Optics by Pedrotti^3 , BOB, the Big Orange Book, Modern Physics by Harris, Classical Dynamics by Thornton and Marion, Griffiths Introduction to Electromagnetism, Pierret's Semiconductor Device Fundamentals, Sakurai or Griffiths Quantum Mechanics, not Schroeder for Thermodynamics (I use Kardar with some success), Hartle’s Gravity, and a special relativity book.

For the math side, literally any calculus book should be fine, I don’t recall what we use for differential equations but it needs to cover matrix DE, discrete and combinatorial algebra by Grimaldi, linear.ups online for Lin al, the vector calculus professor is using their own book, Rudin’s Real Analysis, The Geometry of Physics, Boundary Value Problems by Powers, Numerical Analysis and Scientific Computation by Leader, and Adventures in Group Theory by Joyner

You might also want Introduction to High Performance Computing for Scientists and Engineers.

I love <em>Fundamentals of Astrodynamics</em> by Bate, Mueller, and White. Usually just referred to as "BMW." It's a really popular intro to orbital mechanics (it's what I learned on), and I think it was originally written for the Air Force Academy. Bonus is that it's on Amazon for like $16, and it's a pretty compact book.

You might be interested in reading this book, which will explain in an understandable fashion under what conditions time travel to the past is possible:

Black Holes & Time Warps: Einstein's Outrageous Legacy

by Kip Thorne

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0393312763/

University physics is usually a good start. It does spec rel at the end. As for cosmology... I can’t immediately think of a non graduate level book except BOB, but you might have to work on your math to get through that one. Good luck!

Thorne (+Misner and Wheeler's) Gravitation is by far my favorite.

https://www.amazon.com/Quantum-Mechanics-Theoretical-Leonard-Susskind/dp/0465062903

book on quantum mechanics

That's a shame. It was cool that, for a while, we got to see neat commercial usage like this:

https://www.amazon.com/Rocket-Propulsion-Elements-George-Sutton/dp/0470080248

https://www.amazon.com/Rocket-Propulsion-Elements-George-Sutton/dp/1118753658

Fundamentals of Astrodynamics is a good one.
Playing Kerbal Space Program will give you a really good grasp of basic orbital mechanics too.

The best $$ I spent after buying my first telescope: 1: the book Turn Left at Orion. Just awesome goodness. https://www.amazon.com/Turn-Left-Orion-Hundreds-Telescope/dp/1108457568/ref=sr_1_1?crid=DLKVRCQUSE2W&amp;keywords=turn+left+at+orion&amp;qid=1659388187&amp;sprefix=turn+left%2Caps%2C218&amp;sr=8-1 2: a green laser pointer or red dot pointer. The finder that came with your scope will be discouraging. https://www.amazon.com/Talcope-Brightness-Finderscope-Astronomical-Accessories/dp/B08XMFWFG2/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?crid=3MJDVQQI01YW3&amp;keywords=red+dot+finder&amp;qid=1659388208&amp;sprefix=red+dot+finde%2Caps%2C179&amp;sr=8-1-spons&amp;psc=1&amp;spL...

Have fun out there! clear skies.

https://lmgtfy.app/?q=sealioning

Third time now you have asked for a very stupid and easily answerable question so I would say you are sealioning hard.

I know you won't read a single word of it but putting the link here for any poor sod who actually is interested and is reading this;

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1441908765

Physical controls and the computing power necessary to fly, was way too heavy to fit on the Apollo missions, especially with the extra weight of life support. The manned spacecraft were all still piloted by the ground crew just like all the previously unmanned missions were.

That's all the fish you get buddy.

>Idk what else you can see up there buy yeh.

Do your self a huge favor and get the telescope bible: Turn Left at Orion.

There a book called turn left at Orion.

Turn Left At Orion: Hundreds of Night Sky Objects to See in a Home Telescope - and How to Find Them https://www.amazon.com/dp/1108457568/ref=cm_sw_r_awdo_J9840655BC4VD7NBZW2W

Also learn the stars by using Stellarium Web

It would help immensely to figure out whether physics is computable, i.e. non-circularly causal. Current understanding has it that any closed timelike path ("time machine") through spacetime will cause all manner of mayhem. Like, "Newtonian physics doesn't work" kinds of mayhem. Not just silliness like breaking the conservation of energy or momentum -- but really insane things, like being unable to predict the direction of a thrown baseball. For an exploration, read Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein's outrageous Legacy, by famous physicist Kip Thorne.

Yeah I find this comes up for me a lot. I don't have a science background, dropped physics in highschool, can't do math without a spreadsheet to save my damn life.

That being said, a couple of these authors here were a huge jumping off point for me to become excited and energized at the concept; they may not go into the nuts and bolts of things but in terms of illuminating concepts and translating nearly undefinable ideas to a brain like mine it's essential.

I don't know, I think people like to pass judgement, but I find with QM there's as much art to the explanations as science, at least when you're starting to learn; you can hear the same explanation ten times, and then the right author comes along and number 11 is the one that breaks the concept wide open for you.

For what it's worth, that Halpern book I think is pretty well regarded as a historical account, I think the Carroll one is also good. Both little books are meant to be summations.

If you're anything like me and want to go "next level" on this stuff, I started with the Theoretical Minimum by Susskind and Friedman. It seems to hold up to a lot of scrutiny and is a text that appears in first year classes a lot. I'd be lying if I told you I understood it and it didn't kick my ass, but it may be what you're looking for as a next foray.
Finally Rovelli is a damn treasure and his face should be on money. Fight me.

Possibly this book? Likely the standard intro text book since its release?

Bate. Mueller. and White

Check out Turn Left at Orion. This book has great recommendations and wonderful instructions on how to starhop to each object. It's a classic in the hobby.

>The Apollo Guidance Computer: Architecture and Operation, Frank O'Brien:
>
>Internal and external systems of units
>
>Mission programs in the AGC maintain their internal measurement system in metric,recognizing its importance as the standard notation in science. Crews, however, desired English units in all the displays.

AGC = Apollo Guidance Computer, the thing which was integral part of the moon landing.

Thank you so much for your opinion.

What drives me to AP is exactly what you said. Aside planets* and moon, some binary stars, and the more bright dso ... I fear that visual gazing may be in short of target quite early. I want to find something good (or sufficiently good) to do some AP because I don't want to spend 1,5K or more to have too few interesting spot to point my scope at.

For the "finding" part of the experience I think you're right. I bough (some years ago) Turn Left at Orion and I loved the "DIY" way to find stars. It really helps to know the sky. But if I have to buy a mount (and spend bucks on it) I think it would be wiser to buy a more rugged and feature-rich one and, maybe, not to use the GoTo functionality from the very beginning.

Following some suggestion in this thread I'm evaluating buying this rig. Any opinion on this? Compared to the EdgeHD 8" SC option?

Thanks again.

Since your objective seens to be general relativity, I suggest https://www.amazon.com.br/Gravitation-Charles-W-Misner/dp/0691177791, but if you're interested in a more mathematicaly rigorous approach, or need to study it deeper, like tensor fields, first study advanced linear algebra, real analysis and differential geometry, than I suggest reading using the book you're already familiar on advanced linear algebra or differential geometry, most probably one of then will cover tensor calculus.