Night Has a Thousand Eyes: A Naked-Eye Guide to the Sky, Its Science and Lore - Softcover

Upgren, Arthur

Softcover

ISBN 10: 073820322X ISBN 13: 9780738203225

Publisher: Basic Books, 2000

Synopsis

Do you sometimes wonder why the sky at dusk is filled with color, or how the moon controls the tides? Why do stars twinkle and planets don't? Filled with science and lore, with references to myths, legends, and "high" and popular culture, this "naked-eye" guide (no telescope required) demystifies the celestial in accessible, instructive, and entertaining prose.Upgren tells us why werewolves only come out at night and how to find Betelgeuse. He discusses twilight, the seasons and their causes, our solar system, light and darkness, weather, stars and latitude, the moon, light pollution, and the planets. Night Has a Thousand Eyes is the perfect resource for amateur astronomers and meteorologists of all ages who pause to enjoy sunsets and identify constellations on a starry night.

About this title

About the Author:

Arthur Upgren is Professor of Astronomy at Wesleyan University and has been director of its Van Vleck Observatory. He is the author of Night Has a Thousand Eyes: A Naked-Eye Guide to the Sky, Its Science, and Lore.Jurgen Stock has been on the faculty of Hamburg and Case-Western Reserve Universities. He has also been director of the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory at La Serena, Chile, as well as founding director of CIDA, the Venezuelan National Observatory at Mérida.

From Scientific American:

American artist James McNeill Whistler was invited one sparkling night to step outside and view the panoply of stars. No, he said, "There are far too many of them and they are so very poorly arranged." Upgren, an astronomer at Yale and Wesleyan universities, sets out to make star viewing easier for everyone else who feels as Whistler did and for those who admire the beauty of the night sky but know little about what they see there. He does it clearly and smoothly, describing first the principal stars and constellations as they appear in each season of the year and then the sun, moon and planets. Along the way he supplies an abundance of related facts (the Big Dipper is properly called an asterism, "a name for an easily noticeable group of stars that does not make up a full constellation"; the stars Mizar and Alcor in the Dipper have "long been recognized as a test for good eyesight in many cultures"), discusses Stonehenge and the mysterious Old Stone Mill in Newport, R.I., takes a dig at astrology ("Your horoscope is two thousand years out of date" because the astrological arrangement of the signs of the zodiac was keyed to the celestial alignment of Roman times), and makes a plea for reducing the glare of urban lights that impedes star viewing by astronomers as well as by Whistler types.

About this edition

• Publisher: Basic Books
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 073820322X
• ISBN 13: 9780738203225
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 320