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Space Telescopes

Capturing the Rays of the Electromagnetic Spectrum

  • Book
  • © 2017

Overview

Authors:
  1. Neil English

    1. Fintry by Glasgow, United Kingdom

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  • Explores the fascinating story of how we have deployed space-based observatories to greatly extend our knowledge of the Sun, the family of planets in the solar system, and the cosmos far beyond
  • Shows how different parts of the electromagnetic spectrum provide different information about the universe – and why specialized space observatories are needed
  • Discusses the future of space telescope technologies and the status of space telescopes that are now being built or on the drawing board
  • Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras

Part of the book series: Astronomers' Universe (ASTRONOM)

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Table of contents (11 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xii
    Download chapter PDF

  2. Light: Nature’s Great Information Superhighway

    • Neil English
    Pages 1-22

  3. The Hubble Space Telescope: Trials and Triumphs

    • Neil English
    Pages 23-45

  4. Hubble: The People’s Telescope

    • Neil English
    Pages 47-61

  5. The Infrared Universe

    • Neil English
    Pages 63-77

  6. The Gamma Ray Universe

    • Neil English
    Pages 79-100

  7. The Universe Through Ultraviolet Eyes

    • Neil English
    Pages 101-120

  8. The X-Ray Universe

    • Neil English
    Pages 121-167

  9. Probing the Microwave Sky

    • Neil English
    Pages 169-185

  10. Empire of the Sun

    • Neil English
    Pages 187-245

  11. Measuring the Heavens

    • Neil English
    Pages 247-282

  12. Looking to the Future: The James Webb Space Telescope

    • Neil English
    Pages 283-299

  13. Back Matter

    Pages 301-312
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Keywords

About this book

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 this changed. We now have the means to "see" beyond Earth using ultraviolet, microwave, and infrared rays, X-rays and gamma rays. 


In this book we meet the pioneers and the telescopes that were built around their ideas.  This book looks at space telescopes not simply chronologically but also in order of the electromagnetic spectrum, making it possible to understand better why they were made.

Reviews

“English, a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, takes the reader through an exploration of the discovery of the various spectrums, compositely the electromagnetic spectrum, which is used to study the cosmos through telescopes. … this book is filled with fun information about the science and technology utilized to study the past and prepare for the future. Summing Up: Recommended. All readers.” (R. I. Saltz, Choice, Vol. 57 (11), July, 2017)

Authors and Affiliations

  • Fintry by Glasgow, United Kingdom

    Neil English

About the author

Dr. Neil English is an Irish citizen with a BSc in Physics & Astronomy, and also a PhD in Biochemistry. He is a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, and a regular contributor to Astronomy Now (the UK’s major astronomy magazine), as well as to Ireland's Astronomy & Space. Dr. English’s astronomical images have been published in various magazines and journals, including a full page in the June 2006 issue of Astronomy. Dr. English has, and continues to, make contributions to Cloudy Nights in the form of several detailed telescope reviews. He is the author of Guide to Mars (Pole Star Publications, 2003) and he has three books published by Springer: Choosing and Using a Refracting Telescope (2010), Choosing and Using a Dobsonian Telescope (2011), Classic Telescopes (2012). His fourth book with Springer is Grab ‘n’ Go Astronomy (2014). Dr. English currently has (among other instruments) a large 12-inch Dobsonian which he uses on the darkest, steadiest nights at his home in ruralScotland.

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