Cosmos The SAO Encyclopedia of Astronomy

[Quark]

Greeting All,

I am quite new to the ISS forums and have been browsing through the Astronomy Science threads.

I thought many of you may be interested in my Uni's free on line encyclopedia of astronomy. SAO is within the Centre for Astrophysics and Super Computing at Swinburne University of Technology

It is an evolving resource, written by research astronomers and I am sure much of the information within this resource would help clarify many of your discussions.


http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/cosmos/

Regards
Trevor

[Jeff]

Thanks Trevor,

This looks pretty good ... a bit like Wikipedia but for astronomy. I looked up "quasar" and was impressed witht the result.

Have been looking at the SAO offerings at Swinburne on and off for the past 6 months (having done Engineering there back in the 80's). Main interest at this stage is identifying a good current Cosmology reference, since most of my books are now 15-20 years old.

Any recommendations?
Have my eye on "Universe, by Freedman & Kaufmann, 2007, 8th edition ".

Cheers,
Jeff

[h0ughy]

i like this - its not too bad

[Quark]

Hi Jeff,

Really no comparison between Cosmos and Wikepedia. Anyone can change or edit material on Wikepedia whereas the material in Cosmos is put together by research scientists, people at the cutting edge in their fields.

Universe, by Freedman & Kaufmann was one of my Uni texts at Swinburne, back then it was edition 6. It is an excellent text providing a multimedia learning experience. Many process that are explained within the text refer the reader to other info on that subject on the books Universe DVD and website. Often providing animations or other visual content to support what is in the book.

I learnt very early on at Swinburne that there is a lot of info out there on the net and some of it is correct. The go really is to trawl for what you want on refereed sites, definitely not Wikepedia. The NASA ADS abstract database is excellent, The Astrophysical Journal, Nature and the Astronomical Journal are probably the main sources that I used to gather material for essays and project write ups.

Regards
Trevor

[Jeff]

Thanks for the recommendation Trevor ... I've just jumped on Amazon and picked up a copy of Freedman & Kaufmann.

Thanks once again for the excellent encyclopedia of astronomy link also. :thumbsup:

Jeff

[renormalised]

Jeff, you could've gotten the 8th (or 7th) edition of Universe at Abbey's Bookshop online, here in Oz. I use it for my course, and as Trevor says, it's a good reference.

[Jeff]

Hi renormalised,

Nice clear skies in Melb tonight ... have just popped inside for a bit to warm up. :cold:

Thanks for the tip (much appreciated). I did however check local prices (Abbey's Bookshup sell for AUD $135 plus postage). I purchased thr 8th edition new of AUD$93.50 including international postage from a US based academic textbook supplier via Amazon Marketplace.

Am really looking forward to digging a bit deeper to update/extend my layman's knoledge of astrophysics & cosmology.

Cheers,
Jeff