Introductory astrophysics books on celestial bodies and formations

[fear of the sky]

Hi, I am an Alevel science student and looking forward to study Astrophysics in university.
Can someone recommend books that are more like fact books with descriptions of celestial bodies, their composition, formations and etc.
Like more like an encyclopedia than a book .

 

[jedishrfu]

Openstax has an Astronomy textbook that may have snippets of what you are looking for:

https://openstax.org/details/books/astronomy

There's also the DK book Universe that covers at a popular level the Universe with more of what you are looking for.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0756698413/?tag=pfamazon01-20

 

[Bandersnatch]

I enjoyed 'Physics and chemistry of the solar system' by John S. Lewis.
It provides a quick overview of a wide range of topics - predominantly focused on how the bodies in the solar system are built (and why), rather than on celestial dynamics - without going in too much detail about any single topic.
It is very verbose, with lots of graphs, figures and photographs. Equations are provided as illustrations of physical relationships, without derivations (there might be some in the appendices - I don't recollect), and should be understandable by an A-levels student. One can also just skim over them without losing the gist of a section.

Probably not the best choice for casual reading in a park, though. It's a venerable brick of a book.

Amazon let's you see the table of contents, although you won't get to see much of the main text:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0124467415/?tag=pfamazon01-20

You may want to look it up on Google Books, which should let you take a glimpse of a few pages from the middle parts, to ascertain if it's what you're looking for.

Withdrawn ex-library copies can be found on Abe Books for around 10-ish GBP with postage.