Product Description
Bridging the gap between physics and astronomy textbooks, this book provides step-by-step physical and mathematical development of fundamental astrophysical processes underlying a wide range of phenomena in stellar, galactic, and extragalactic astronomy. The book has been written for upper-level undergraduates and beginning graduate students, and its strong pedagogy ensures solid mastery of each process and application. It contains over 150 tutorial figures, numerous examples of astronomical measurements, and 201 exercises. Topics covered include the Kepler-Newton problem, stellar structure, binary evolution, radiation processes, special relativity in astronomy, radio propagation in the interstellar medium, and gravitational lensing. Applications presented include Jeans length, Eddington luminosity, the cooling of the cosmic microwave background (CMB), the Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect, Doppler boosting in jets, and determinations of the Hubble constant. This text is a stepping stone to more specialized books and primary literature. Password-protected solutions to the exercises are available to instructors at www.cambridge.org/9780521846561. For information on Astronomy Methods: A Physical Approach to Astronomical Observations also by Hale Bradt, please click here.

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.0 based on 1 review)

Difficult to figure what class I'd use this book for, but it is a nice book... by Michael A. Duvernois (Minneapolis, MN United States)

4 Stars
February 16, 2010
It's sort of a junior or senior level text in astrophysics which seems to be aimed at astronomy students. That is students with some interest and background in fairly observational astronomy. Physics students would be lacking the observational aspects and might find the book less than rigorous in places. So, junior or senior astronomy students. That's not a lot of people, and many of them will have had an intro astrophysics class that would have covered some fraction of this material already. Okay, that said, it's a really nice textbook. Well written, extremely clear, and connects nicely to current research. In fact, pairing this class with astronomy seminars could work nicely. Another possibility is for the amateur astronomer. If they have a fair physics and math background (perhaps quite rusty) this could make an excellent introduction to astrophysics for the astronomy fan. Worth considering...

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