A cultural break – May 2007

The book I will talk about this month was in my shopping list for some time and tackles astronomy in a very interesting way. I was mesmerized by the photos proposed.

Voyage dans l’infini was written by Serge Brunier and is about a very good idea as it shows different photographs of the same region of space but with different enlargements. This book thus gives for each 12 scenes four photos.

Roughly, the first one is done in order to show what you could see with your eyes, the second gives an idea of what you could get with binoculars, the third with a professional telescope, and the last one is generally taken by Hubble or via a gigantic telescope.

This is to link what we, simple people, see when we look at the sky in the deepest of the night to what astronomers watch through the lens of their imposing telescopes or via Hubble.

This book proposes very interesting, and yet poetic foreword and texts. These pages are a succession of large figures that make us, mere Human, very very tiny compared to a simple galaxy.

Mr Brunier knows his astronomy perfectly and pushes the reader to learn out more as his texts are simply brilliantly written and very interesting.

This book is not (yet) translated in English. But Mr. Brunier wrote several books, including some that has been translated in English.

To learn out more, please check this Amazon.com page. | Serge Brunier’s homepage

29.95 € | Buy this book at Amazon.fr | Official page of the Editor

To keep on the Astronomy domain, I would like to mention that I added two links on the sidebar pertaining to this science.

The first one is probably in your bookmarks if you are interested in stars, galaxies and other nebulae. The Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) is a page of the NASA that provides as the name states a magnificent photo / video of space everyday.

Most pictures are of mesmerizing beauty and I strongly recommend it if you have any interest to this particular science. An interesting feature of this website are the explanations for each single image published. This is indeed excellent for somebody who wants to learn out more.

The second link I propose you is the personal homepage of Thierry Legault, an amateur astrophotographer of genius. Mr. Legault has been photographing the sky for years and his website provides absolutely great pictures.

He recently wrote a book on Astrophotography and how to begin in that very particular branch of Photography. As I am interested by both Photography and Astronomy, I off course bought the book but had no time yet to read it. I will probably review it here one day.