Universe: The Definitive Visual Guide

This is not only an awesome and wonderfully presented visual masterpiece, it is a reasonably priced book as well. For anyone with at least a casual interest in Astronomy, I would put this book at or near the top of the list for one to purchase without reservation. This is a large approximately 10" by 12" book of over 500 pages. Every page contains interesting and useful information, most of it with accompanying pictures, illustrations and graphs. I found the section on our solar system alone to be worth the price of this book, but you get much, much more than that. There is a fantastic two page photograph of one of the detectors of the large hadron collider which makes you wonder "how in the world do you even begin to build something like this?" There is another beautiful two page spread of the planet Jupiter and a full ten pages devoted to this magnificent planet and it's major moons. The entire section devoted to the solar system is just a thing of beauty. For the average person, there are many complex things explained simply. This work includes a section on telescopes and their setup, a whole bunch of star charts and the constellations beautifully depicted. The only possible bit of negative I could find regarding the production of this book is that it is printed in China. This is nothing against China and the book is physically produced of high quality and this is probably a factor in it's relatively low cost, but it is a bit sad that even book production is something being moved out of the United States and offshore.

Lots of good info, some of it has been updated by now. But a good addition to the library after a year on the coffee table.

What a great book this is! I'm a beginner on the cosmos and was looking for a book that wouldn't get me bogged down in pages of text and that would keep my interest up. This book fitted the bill perfectly! It is very well structured starting from the introduction section through to the sky guide. Each section is well explained and goes into detail (so it's not just for beginners). There are hundreds of fantastic photographs and well laid out diagrams that support the text and really bring the book to life. There are also many articles on related topics - the history of the study of the cosmos, famous astronomers, equipment. This is a great coffee table book which can easily be read in small bites. This book has really ignited my interest in the cosmos and I am thoroughly enjoying reading it. I would recommend the book to those starting off on their educational journey of the cosmos like myself or just as a great reference book. If you already have a good understanding of the cosmos and how it works then perhaps a text book at the next level would be better. Overall a highly recommended read!

A better title for this book is EVERYTHING THAT YOU WANT TO KNOW ABOUT THE UNIVERSE, BUT AFRAID TO ASK. In a nutshell, this is an authoritative encyclopedia of the universe. The information is just astounding. Everything is presented in detail: stars, nebula, planets, comets, meteorites, star clusters, telescopes, the Big Bang Theory, and other subjects. As an illustration, other similar publications just cover stars in general. This book goes beyond by providing an individual picture and a detailed textual discussion on every major star ever studied. . The textual information is supplemented by beautiful colorful pictures. Unfortunately, many famous photographs are not adequately displayed or presented. For example, THE PILLARS OF CREATION in the Eagle Nebula occupies a tiny 2.5" x 2.5" square. The crashing of the remnants of Shoemaker-Levy 9 Comet on Jupiter is completely omitted. The WMAP map that shows the microwave background radiation from the Big Bang is an insignificant 3" x 1.5" figure. Such omissions are inexcusable. Each deserves a full two-page enlargement!

Wonderful book. Spectacular images throughout. Detailed information great for its time.

This is the most interesting, most well organized book on astronomy I have ever read. The photos are amazing. The graphics and charts that explain concepts are extremely well done and lead the reader through a gentle learning curve, where one thing builds to another until a full picture comes to light. The methods astronomers use are extremely well explained, visually, to make complex ideas easier to remember than just text. The whole presentation is wonderful. The book is a worthy learning tool. For what it is worth, I had just begun to develop an interest in the universe this year (I am retired) and had recently read The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene and also Astrophysics for People in a Hurry by Neil deGrasse Tyson, both highly recommended books, very well written but a bit hard to grasp since the visual helps were sparce. They stirred my interest, however. Now, as I read through Universe by Robert Dinwiddie, and as I study each set of graphics, I am led through the ideas in ways I can comprehend and remember. The book is sophisticated enough for science-oriented people to get a lot out of it if they study each page fully, but I think it also has much to offer those who might simply wish to scan through the marvelous images of planets, stars, nebulae, galaxies, etc. A breathtaking journey.

MIND BOGGLING, IN A GREAT WAY----This is the term that I use to describe this book, UNIVERSE. As explained throughout this book; the Universe is immensely huge, vast and complex, and everything in the Universe, from the biggest stars and planets down to the small atom is interconnected and follows the same laws of nature. On page 21, the following paragraph explains about the vast interconnected Universe : " THE UNIVERSE IS ALL OF EXISTENCE---all of space and time and all the matter and energy within it. The universe is unknowingly vast, and ever since it formed, it has been expanding, carrying distant regions apart at speeds up to, and in some cases possibly exceeding, the speed of light. The universe encompasses everything from the smallest atom to the largest galaxy cluster, and yet it seems that all are governed by the same basic laws. All visible matter (which is only a small percentage of the total matter) is built from the same subatomic blocks, and the same fundamental forces govern all interactions between these elements. Knowledge of these cosmic operating principles---from general relativity to quantum physics---informs cosmology, the study of the universe as an entity. Cosmologists hope to answer questions such as "How big is the universe? ", " How old is it? ", and " How does it work, on the grandest scale? " The Universe is truly an amazing, magnificent, spectacular, awesome, occurrence. This book is huge; and the explicit beautiful colorful pictures are pleasing to view, and they help the reader understand the written information in the book. This book, UNIVERSE, is more than a book. When you read it, and look through it, you feel as though you are taking a trip through the Universe. It's an exceptional book. I'm happy that I bought it.

Boy, this book is heavy (and they say knowledge is weightless)! I would have liked to give Universe (revised edition 2012) four and a half stars, but we don't have that option. The book opens flat and invites hours of browsing (make sure you have a sturdy table), and contains a wealth of up-to-date information with at least one omission (perhaps there are more but with a book of this size, it would take a long time to discover them). The omission I am referring to is that there is no mention whatsoever of the New Horizons space probe which was launched from Cape Canaveral in 2006 and is scheduled to arrive in the vicinity of Pluto and its satellites on July 15, 2015 and continue on to the Kuiper Belt and beyond. Nasa hopes to obtain much new and extraordinary data from New Horizons. A brief mention of the approaching spacecraft on the pages devoted to Pluto and the Kuiper Belt would have been ideal. All-in-all, this is a book to delight the armchair astronomer as well as anyone else with even a passing interest in this fascinating subject.