San Antonio College Library

"An Acre of Glass describes how recent innovations in telescope technology have led to the construction of giant, ground-based observatories and to an explosive development in astronomy."--Jacket.

The telescope is undoubtedly one of the world's most far-reaching inventions. For the past four centuries the telescope has stood at the forefront of human discovery. From its humble beginnings in seventeenth-century Holland, when a simple spectacle-maker first presented his invention to his country's military leaders, to today's colossal structures housed in space-age cathedrals, the telescope has unlocked nature's secrets. And in the past decade,...

Presents information about using a telescope for astronomy, discussing the different models available and what factors to consider in choosing one, and describing the celestial bodies in the night that can be observed with a telescope for every month of the year in the southern and northern hemispheres.

A history of the telescope includes discussion of such related topics as the dark-adapted human eye, interferometry, adaptive optics, and remote sensing.

"Sarah Wild's Searching African Skies is the story of South African radio astronomy and the quest to hear the songs of the stars. What, exactly, is the Square Kilometre Array? How did South Africa end up bidding against Australia to host the largest scientific instrument on Earth? What does it hope to find in outer space? Are we alone in the universe? Will we be able to see as far back as the big bang? And can a developing country justify building...

Space telescopes are among humankind's greatest scientific achievements of the last fifty years. This book describes the instruments themselves and what they were designed to discover about the Solar System and distant stars. Exactly how these telescopes were built and launched and the data they provided is explored. Only certain kinds of radiation can penetrate our planet's atmosphere, which limits what we can observe. But with space telescopes all...

Chronicles the invention of the mirror and its impact on human history, science, myth, religion, the arts, and manners, detailing its key use in a wide variety of human activities.

Radio telescopes have transformed our understanding of the Universe. Pulsars, quasars, Big Bang cosmology: all are discoveries of the new science of radio astronomy. Here, Francis Graham-Smith describes the birth, development, and maturity of radio astronomy, from the first discovery of cosmic radio waves to its present role as a major part of modern astronomy. Radio is part of the electromagnetic spectrum, covering infra-red, visible light, ultraviolet,...

For millennia, humans studying the stars had no idea if there were planets outside our solar system, let alone ones similar enough to ours to sustain life. The first extra-solar planet - or exoplanet - was only discovered in 1995. Now, a new space-based telescope has discovered thousands more, and some of them may be just like Earth. If the Kepler Space Telescope's discoveries are verified, and if what is true for one randomly chosen area of the cosmos...