Astrophysics Starter Guide | Find the Best Textbooks

[FUNKER]

hey all,

Has anyone got any suggestions for a good astrophysics starter text. Not to keen for a pop science book, more of a qualitative book.

Regards

 

[Helios]

Chandrasekhar's "Intro to Stellar Structure" is a great book, a classic. It's written before fusion was understood though. Still, the mathematic foundations are well explained.

 

[FUNKER]

Thanks for your reply Helios will check it out

 

[FUNKER]

My university library only has this title ,

Stellar structure and evolution / R. Kippenhahn, A. Weigert.

have you by chance read this?

 

[George Jones]

I'm not sure what level you want.

You might want to look at Astronomy 292 - Winter Quarter 2005 on http://www.astronomy.ohio-state.edu/~ryden/" [Broken].

 

[FUNKER]

Thanks for that link George!

 

[Kurdt]

This following thread had a discussion about starter texts for astronomy and astrophysics.

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=147499&highlight=zeilik

 

[stevebd1]

The following have proved useful to me as introductions-

'The magic furnace- the search for the origin of atoms' by Marcus Chown

'Fusion, the energy of the universe' by Garry McCracken and Peter Stott (deals mainly with the specifics of fusion reactors but has useful information regarding nucleosynthesis and other phenomena relating to the fusion process)

I recently bought 'Particle astophysics' by Donald Perkins (though leaning heavily on the maths side, is full of useful information, regardless of whether or not you have an A level in maths, and touches on subjects such as dark matter, dark energy, the expanding universe and star formation).

I've also started reading 'the extravagant universe- exploding stars, dark energy and the accelerating cosmos' by Robert Kirshner and while this isn't necessarily an academic book, it's well written and informative.

regards
Steve

 

[JohnnyTheFox]

My university used "An introduction to modern astrophysics" by Caroll and Ostlie in first year. I found it good once I had done a bit more maths. It covers most things, observational, stellar, black holes... A little on the expensive side if your not doing a course maybe. Was about £45.