Paul Sutherland

If you have a child, or a classroom, you could do worse. I love the 'what we knew then' vs 'what we think we know now' pieces. Photography is up-to-date. Care is generally taken to indicate painting vs false-color vs composite, etc. But there's no pronunciation guide! :( And some of our questions did go unanswered.

A decent introduction to the solar system, lucid and readable, with lots of great pictures. For anyone just beginning to be interested in the planets, this is written in a way that can be understood, but can also be appreciated by someone who has a bit more background, such as a well read lay person. It comes with a planimeter, which is fun, and instructions on how to use it to find where things are in the sky at your date and time. I will recommend it to my students.

An excellent introduction to our little corner of the universe. Though it is obviously limited in scope, with several subjects (namely the moons of Jupiter, Saturn and Neptune along with asteroids and Plutoids) being very short-changed, "What Happened to Pluto?" is a very satisfactory way to begin learning astronomy for the lay person.

An excellent introduction to our little corner of the universe. Though it is obviously limited in scope, with several subjects (namely the moons of Jupiter, Saturn and Neptune along with asteroids and Plutoids) being very short-changed, "What Happened to Pluto?" is a very satisfactory way to begin learning astronomy for the lay person.