James B. Kaler is Professor of Astronomy at the University of Illinois where his research centres on dying stars. Professor Kaler has held Fulbright and Guggenheim Fellowships, and has been awarded medals for his work from the University of Liege in Belgium and the University of Mexico. As well as having published more than 100 research articles, he has written for a variety of popular and semi-popular magazines including Mercury, Astronomy, Stardate, Sky and Telescope, Scientific American, and l'Astronomia in Italy, and appears regularly on Illinois television and radio. His popular book, Stars, was published by Scientific American Library in 1992, and a new elementary astronomy textbook, Astronomy!, was published in 1994 by HarperCollins. Professor Kaler was also a consultant for Time-Life Books on their Voyage Through the Universe series. He is past president of the Board of the Champaign-Urbana Symphony.
Preface
1. The Earth and the celestial sphere
2. The moving Earth and the travelling observer
3. The orbital motion of the Earth
4. Stars and constellations
5. Precession, nutation, and aberration
6. Time
7. Sunrise and sunset
8. Positions in the sky and on Earth
9. The Moon
10. Tides, eclipses, and calendars
11. The planets
12. The small bodies of the solar system
13. Light and atmosphere
Appendices: I. Graphs and tables
II. Star maps
III. Trigonometric relationships
IV. Bibliography
Index.
