To see accurate pricing, please choose your delivery country.
 
 
United States
£ GBP
All Shops

British Wildlife

8 issues per year 84 pages per issue Subscription only

British Wildlife is the leading natural history magazine in the UK, providing essential reading for both enthusiast and professional naturalists and wildlife conservationists. Published eight times a year, British Wildlife bridges the gap between popular writing and scientific literature through a combination of long-form articles, regular columns and reports, book reviews and letters.

Subscriptions from £33 per year

Conservation Land Management

4 issues per year 44 pages per issue Subscription only

Conservation Land Management (CLM) is a quarterly magazine that is widely regarded as essential reading for all who are involved in land management for nature conservation, across the British Isles. CLM includes long-form articles, events listings, publication reviews, new product information and updates, reports of conferences and letters.

Subscriptions from £26 per year
Academic & Professional Books  Reference  Physical Sciences  Cosmology & Astronomy

Centennial History of the Carnegie Institution of Washington: Volume 1 The Mount Wilson Observatory

By: Allan Sandage(Author), Richard A Meserve(Foreword By)
662 pages, illustrations
Centennial History of the Carnegie Institution of Washington: Volume 1
Click to have a closer look
Select version
  • Centennial History of the Carnegie Institution of Washington: Volume 1 ISBN: 9781107412392 Paperback Jan 2013 Not in stock: Usually dispatched within 6 days
    £68.99
    #205626
  • Centennial History of the Carnegie Institution of Washington: Volume 1 ISBN: 9780521830782 Hardback Feb 2005 Not in stock: Usually dispatched within 6 days
    £139.00
    #152609
Selected version: £68.99
About this book Contents Customer reviews Related titles

About this book

Since its foundation in 1904, the Mount Wilson Observatory has been at the centre of the development of astrophysics. Perched atop a mountain wilderness, two mammoth solar tower telescopes and the 60- and 100-inch behemoth night-time reflectors were all the largest in the world. Research has centred around two main themes – the evolution of stars and the development of the universe. This first volume in a series of five histories of the Carnegie Institution describes the people and events, the challenges and successes that the Observatory has witnessed. It includes biographical sketches of forty of the most famous Mount Wilson pioneer astronomers working during the first half of the twentieth century. Contemporary photographs illustrate the development and use of some of the innovative instruments that filled the observatory during this time. This story brings together the elements that formed modern theories of stellar evolution and cosmology.

Contents

Foreword Richard A. Meserve
Acknowledgements
Prologue

Part I. Before the Beginning (1542-1904)
1. A telegram
2. The origin of a name
3. Three observatories for Mount Wilson before the real one
4. The creation of the Carnegie Institution and its initial Astronomy Advisory Committee

Part II. Creation of the Observatory and the First Scientific Results
5. The instruments of detection: solar telescopes, coelostats, spectrographs and spectra
6. Snow, hale, frost and gale: just the right people to study storms on the sun
7. Tower telescopes and magnetic fields and cycles
8. Pioneers of peering: the scientific staff in the early years (1904-9)
9. Solar physics: the intermediate years (1910-30)
10. Yet more solar physics: motions on the surface, clocks in the gravity field and the reality of prominences

Part III. The Beginning of Nighttime Sidereal Astronomy at Mount Wilson
11. The coming of the 60-inch and 100-inch reflectors
12. Life on the mountain
13. Anatomy of an observatory

Part IV. Preparation for an Understanding of Stellar Evolution and Galactic Structure
14. Galactic structure in the raw
15. Spectral classification and the invention of spectroscopic parallaxes
16. Radial velocity
17. Globular star clusters and the galactocentric revolution
18. Galactic rotation: Stromberg, Lindblad and Oort
19. The Carnegie Meridian Astrometry De

partment at the Dudley Observatory
20. Absolute magnitudes from direct parallaxes and stellar motions
21. Threads leading to the population concept that became the fabric of evolution

Part V. Physics of the Stars and the Interstellar Medium
22. Five problems in astrophysics
23. Long-term research associates and short-term visitors
24. Interstellar gas, instruments and the spiral arms of the galaxy

Part VI. Observational Cosmology and the Code of Stellar Evolution
25. Observational cosmology I: galaxy classification and the discovery of cepheids
26. Observational cosmology II: the expansion of the universe and the search for the curvature of space
27. Down more corridors of time
28. The observational approach to stellar evolution

Epilogue
Abbreviations
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Customer Reviews

By: Allan Sandage(Author), Richard A Meserve(Foreword By)
662 pages, illustrations
Media reviews

"The book is nicely produced and illustrated [...] Certainly one for the library, for historians of science, and for nostalgic old astronomers like me! Younger bloods will also learn some good astronomy from it."
- David Stickland, The Observatory

Current promotions
New and Forthcoming BooksNHBS Moth TrapBritish Wildlife MagazineBuyers Guides