Wayne Biddle, an American Pulitzer prize-winning reporter, has at last been able to penetrate the murky Nazi past of Dr Wernher von Braun, creator of the Saturn V rocket that enabled the United States to land the first men on the Moon in 1969. US intelligence gathered all the details of how closely he was involved with the ruthless use of slave-labour during the war years, but kept the information secret for half a century while they used his services.....

It must be difficult to write a book about the Apollo 11 mission. I'm sure that there is a book that covers every minute detail and I seem to have read quite a few of them, so when I received this book I was not convinced that I would find anything new....

In the fiftieth year of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI), Paul Davies’ book is a welcome wake-up call for the search for intelligent life elsewhere in the Universe. Davies, a professor at the BEYOND Center at the Arizona State University and a familiar name in popular science, has got to the nub of the SETI endeavour, highlighting the strengths and flaws of radio SETI (it is easy to do, but with marginally better than a cat in hell’s chance of finding anything) and exploring new frontiers where he believes we should be directing our search....

For 12 years Carnarvon, a desert trading post on the remote north-west coast of Australia, provided NASA’s largest tracking station outside the US mainland. Established in 1963, it provided an essential stepping-stone enabling the Apollo astronauts to land on the Moon. Every spacecraft launched from Cape Canaveral passed close to Carnarvon on its first orbit, and James Webb, head of NASA, said its ability to check their flight direction, altitude and velocity was essential to secure the astronauts’ safety....

Fourteen of the world's leading astronomers and scientists have come together to produce what could be the most important of the many volumes America's space agency NASA has produced in the study of cosmic evolution following 50 years of human and scientific spaceflight. Many are deeply involved in SETI, the search for life on other worlds, and one of them, Howard Bloom, says evolution is shouting a message at us: get as many species as possible of fish, reptiles and mammals 'off this dangerous scrap of stone and find new niches for life' before the whole experiment of life dies in some perfectly normal cosmic catastrophe....

The dedication may read, ‘To Pluto, with our apologies’ but by reading on it becomes clear that there is really nothing to apologise for. Despite having its planetary status removed, this book reveals Pluto to be a fascinating and important member of a diverse collection of icy bodies. The outer Solar System and its associated nomenclature can be confusing territory, yet this book clearly and informatively guides you through the menagerie of strange and frigid objects that lurk in the feeble sunlight out beyond Neptune....

This book 'does what it says on the tin'. It consists of pictures of astronomers, mainly senior, well-known astronomers, mostly comprising head-and-shoulders shots, and with a heavy UK bias. If you are one of the lucky 38 illustrated, your relatives will no doubt be anxious to purchase a copy of this book....

Haynes are normally associated with their extensive range of car manuals but in recent times they have expanded into other fields, including space. But this book doesn’t go into great technical detail about how rockets and spacecraft work, and some of the information is patchy. What the book does have is hundreds of (mainly colour) photographs from the past fifty years of manned spaceflight, from Vostok to the ISS....

This beautifully produced, ring-bound book, now in its fourth edition, is a real reference gem for any astronomer or student. It contains just about all the maths you'd ever need for astronomical applications, presented in an exquisitely clear manner. This is no dry book of formulae; it's all firmly aimed at hands-on, 'recipe-book' demonstration of the method of any given calculation and getting you to think about every step.....

Intended for the beginner or casual astronomical observer, this attractive book provides a guide to the constellations and other celestial features for those using binoculars, small telescopes or even the naked eye. The centrepiece of the book comprises monthly charts, with northern and southern views for each month, as seen in mid-month at approximately 22:00 hours local time. The writing style is clear and uncomplicated, although technical terms are used where necessary, and there is useful glossary....

Conceding that the court is still out on pre-1600 allusions to far-seeing devices, this book quickly moves to the firmer ground of the seventeenth century invention, aware that prior optical experimentation had been rife for many years, including, we discover, work by Galileo himself. Almost immediately improvements to this new device were sought, by some measures very strange to today’s standards....

As an experienced asteroid observer, and a former director of the BAA’s Asteroids and Remote Planets section, Roger Dymock has all the knowledge necessary to instruct a newcomer in the art of asteroid observing. Fortunately, he has had the patience to assemble this excellent observing manual for any potential student of minor planets and the more distant dwarf planets too....

Following his highly regarded book about refracting telescopes, Neil English, a very experienced observer and long time contributor to Astronomy Now, has now written a book about that icon of modern astronomy, the Dobsonian telescope. He begins with a brief account of John Dobson's life and how, whilst a monk, he began to make Newtonian telescopes supported by a very simple alt-azimuth mount and take these out onto the sidewalks of California to show the general public the beauty of the heavens....

Dr Neil English is no stranger to the astronomical community or indeed Astronomy Now. His knowledge of telescope optics is highly respected, and here he endeavours to lay down all his knowledge in a concise and thorough manner. He opens the book with a wonderful overview of the history of the telescope, which differs from the usual run of the mill Galileo and Harriot rehash in that it follows through with more information on the evolution of the telescope after its momentous beginnings....

This delightful 13-minute film chronicling the naming of Pluto by Venetia Burney (now Venetia Burney Phair) in 1930 is a gentle telling of one of astronomy's memorable human stories...

I thought I was fairly clued up on basic constellation mythology, but after reading The Mythology of the Night Sky – sub-titled An Amateur Astronomer’s Guide to the Ancient Greek and Roman Legends – it turns out I hadn’t even scratched the surface....

There are two parallel narrative streams in About Time. One relates how our human experience of time has evolved from a Palaeolithic bone etched with lunar phases through sundials, clocks, electric telegraph and the invention of time zones to make railway timetables workable. The other unfolds our scientific understanding of time...

Books with the words ‘deep sky’ in the title are ten-a-penny, as are coffee table books boasting gorgeous Hubble images. This book by Sky and Telescope columnist Sue French manages to steer clear of the pitfalls of both of these kinds of books with her latest offering, Deep Sky Wonders. Since 1999 French has maintained her monthly column of the same name, and is well-regarded for having extensive knowledge on the subject – and for conveying this in a very readable and easy-to-understand way...

On 26 July 1609, Thomas Harriot became the first person to make a drawing of an astronomical body with a telescope - over three months before Galileo. Harriot remained an obscure figure in scientific history for well over 200 years after his death in 1621 and it was not until the late twentieth century that he became of international scholarly recognition and study....

Dr Sergei Krushchev, son of former Soviet leader Nikita Kruschev, reveals in a long foreword that the launch of Sputnik 1, the world's first satellite, would have been taken for granted in the Soviet Union had it not created such sensational alarm in the United States...

More than 40 years ago Apollo 12 made man’s second Moon-landing, and it could be as long again before humans return. But David Harland is keeping the memories fresh with a series of books covering each of the landings, this being the second. One can relive the whole mission in 500 dense pages from lift-off to analysing the 74lbs of moon rocks they brought back (“These rocks have been waiting four-and-a half billion years for us” said Alan Bean. “Let’s go grab a few”)....

It's no surprise that most amateur astronomers like a challenge: just tracking down the constellations for the first time is pretty daunting - ask any beginner - so a book highlighting challenging observing targets is likely to prove popular. ..

Ken Harrison is one of the most respected members of the astronomical spectroscopy and solar imaging scene. In this truly magnificent book, Harrison takes you on a journey through the history of spectroscopy, through all of the baseline techniques that an amateur will need to go from imaging any object that a spectra can be obtained from, be that comets, our Sun, stars, planets or even the brief flashes of a meteor, and then concludes with a start to finish methodology, including some very simple mathematics, on how an amateur can design and build their very own spectroscope...

Most of what we hear about Russian space exploration these days seems mostly to relate to resupplying the ISS, but it wasn't always so. Back in the Cold War era, space nerd kids like me had huge interest in lunar, Solar System and Earth-orbit Soviet missions. In a real tour-de-force of Russian space missions, this welcome text starts at the very beginning, even before the famous 'beep-beeping' Sputnik, with high-altitude balloon flights. Although we in the West rarely pay any attention to the facts, pioneering Russian balloon and low Earth-orbit satellites contributed enormously to our understanding of Earth's radiation belts, ionospheric science and cosmic ray research. ..

Subtitled A History of Australian Astronomy, this book first appeared in 1996 and was a coup de force. It is pleasing that it has been re-released in paperback as original copies have been changing hands for vast sums...

With so many books covering Galileo’s astronomical feats, Dan Hofstadter’s unique book bridges a gap in our scientific and moral understanding of both man and the times. The prologue immediately sets the scene with the day Galileo was summoned to appear before the Roman Inquisition. The charge, simply to account for his published debates on an Earth-centred system of the Universe versus the Sun-centred system...

This book details the Soviet Union’s robotic space programme from the first lunar launch in 1958 to the Mars 96 mission. Beginning with the biographies of directors and chief designers, descriptions of design bureaux and research institutes, together with an account of early rocket development and launch vehicles, this provides a solid background for a detailed account of lunar and planetary missions. Many rare photographs and diagrams are included...

There are few certainties in life, but the one thing we can be absolutely sure about is that one day we will die. Not today, nor tomorrow (hopefully) but there is no escape. How it Ends is an in-depth look at possible ways in which the end will come for us mortals and the Universe as a whole. Although at first glance the subject matter may seem a little depressing, morbid even, the author, a professional astronomer at the University of Arizona, manages to bring humour as well as enlightenment to his writing....

A science without a subject matter is how critics often look upon astrobiology, but that’s doing a huge disservice to this burgeoning science. Extremophiles on Earth, the search for the origin of life on our planet, the exploration of potential habitats on Mars and the ocean moons of the gas giants, the discovery of potentially habitable exoplanets and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence all fall underneath its umbrella. Chris Impey has a lot to talk about then in this revised edition of his book....

Ask any modern astro-imager which program they use to process their images and there's a very good chance that the answer will be Adobe Photoshop. It's been the mainstay of professional photographers for over twenty years and has gone through several major transformations in that time.....

Cosmic Biology is an astrobiology book intended for a popular market, a work based on science but in which speculation has been allowed to romp wildly. Mostly confined to examining the prospects for life in the Solar System, there is almost nothing about exoplanets and how we detect them. Hence, this is astrobiology with very little 'astro' and a lot of biology, laced with planetary science and some fairly painless chemistry, administered on a 'need to know' basis....

The ‘southwest’ in the title refers to the United States (California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas). This area is home to some of the great observatories of the World, including the historical 200 inch Palomar reflector, the twenty-seven radio dishes of the Very Large Array and the truly gargantuan twin 8.4 metre mirrors that comprise the Large Binocular Telescope. The subtitle A Guide for Curious Skywatchers, indicates that the book is aimed primarily at astronomers (and also the interested layman) visiting the area....

This sumptuous book features the favourite images from all the Apollo Moon missions chosen by the astronauts themselves, with insightful commentary from many of them, revealing their range of personalities...

If you’re looking for something to truly fire the imagination, then grab Ray Jayawardhana’s Strange New Worlds: The Search for Alien Planets and Life Beyond our Solar System from the shelves of your nearest bookshop - you will be glad that you did! ...

Clouds are the perennial problem with astronomy in the UK. Jeff Lashley, a tech support engineer at the National Space Centre, may have the solution with radio astronomy. Starting with the physics of the Sun, he dives straight in at the deep end and holds you there for the remainder of the book, with no respite. This, alongside explanations of Jupiter and its structure and meteors and how they slice through our atmosphere, lays the groundwork for the rest of this quite excellent book.....

This is an engaging and accessible biography that not only describes the lives and work of William and Caroline Herschel, but also gives insights into the way they thought about astronomy, which was quite unique for their time...

The first thing to say about this book is that it is not a heavyweight or a comprehensive tome. It consists of only 177 pages and some 60,000 words of text. Eighty percent of the book is about eclipses, mainly solar ones, with 25 pages covering eclipses of the Moon.....

It was in Victorian Britain, with its increasingly literate population, abundant discoveries and inventions, that the provision of science for popular audiences first assumed a serious cultural significance. And while Bernard Lightman in this detailed and scholarly study deals with a wide spectrum of popular science, it is his chapters dealing with the popularisation of astronomy which will be of special interest for AN readers...

Back in 1978, members of the British Interplanetary Society presented the results of Project Daedalus, an epic five-year design study for a starship, to make the point that - cost excepted - it wasn't beyond the bounds of realism to one day voyage between the stars with current or near-future technology (e.g. nuclear fusion)...

This guide to observing meteor showers contains much useful information for a newcomer to meteor observing, especially with regards to practical advice relating to meteor watches. One third of the book covers the major showers; another third the lesser known showers, all with useful charts included to show the radiant locations and their daily motion...

The book begins with an introduction discussing the origin of the list and saying something about its creator. This is followed by 212 pages of text, maps and images describing the objects themselves. Two pages are devoted to each, with three pairings – the Rosette Nebula and the associated cluster NGC 2244, for example – being covered together. These pages provide notes on the objects, such as magnitude, location and size, in addition to guidance on the telescope aperture required, suggestions for star-hop starting points and potential CCD/DSLR imaging strategies....

Martin Mobberley's book is very attractive not only in explaining the technical detail of cataclysmic phenomena but also in the promotion of useful observing projects for amateurs to undertake...

Martin Mobberley is a well-known author of practical astronomy books having written seven previous Springer titles. This, his most recent offering, is packed with a wealth of information to aid both would-be comet discoverers and observers alike. The author is certainly well qualified to write about comets having attempted to discover a comet back in the early 1980s and over the intervening years having known many of the other amateurs bitten by the same comet 'bug'....

Another extensively illustrated and useful book in Springer's Practical Astronomy series, GOTO Telescopes Under Suburban Skies is to be welcomed for more than one reason. First, it conveys the important message that the urban amateur astronomer need not stay in an armchair or sit at a keyboard without ever going out under what might be indifferent skies; and second, it brings together a fulsome list of targets, arranged by season, to tempt the observer into doing more with that telescope sitting in the garage, be it a GOTO instrument or one less sophisticated....

This highly technical book, subtitled Mathematics, Astronomy, and the Early History of Eclipse Reckoning, is a unique account of how ancient cultures used mathematics to work out the phenomena of eclipses, their frequency, positioning in the sky and philosophical relevance. Dr Montelle’s book draws for the first time on ancient scripture as evidence and, at the end, the reader is in no doubt that mathematics was not invented, it was discovered.....

This book is essentially an eclectic mix of short essays (one as short as 40 words!). Sir Patrick uses simple (sometimes oddball) engineered questions as a vehicle to deliver snippets of information on all aspects of his astronomical knowledge and personal encounters....

This revised edition nearly didn’t appear! The end of the world was supposed to have taken place on 31st December 1999! But thankfully the world did not end due to any bite of the millennium bug or time warped sect and the book has appeared. Patrick takes hold of a run of stories concerning eccentrics, free thinkers and a host of chaotic bloomers and settles us down in our comfy armchair to read.....

Over the years, The Sky At Night books have served an important role. Apart from mirroring the programmes, they have accurately chronicled the events of the space age and this new volume, number 13, is no exception. It takes us from autumn 2005 through to summer 2009, a period that has effectively signalled the end of the ‘space age’ and confirmed the ‘information age‘.....

I'm already a meteorite lover so when this book landed on my desk I wondered if I would learn anything new. I did.....

First impressions: if you want a digestible compendium of state-of-the-art Mars research, this is the book...

Tyler Nordgren is an astronomer who is very at home in the wilderness, camping and enjoying his surroundings whether it is by day or night. This book charts his quest to visit twelve national parks in the USA and write a diary of a number of cultural points alongside descriptions of night sky objects observed from the various locations.....

In his introduction to this new edition of his 1993 opus, John North states that very few cultures have been ignored. In my opinion, not one has been ignored. This vast volume takes the story of astronomy from pre-historic years through to 2005 and the results from the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) and Hubble Space Telescope. The book avoids dismissal of astrology but moreover gives this matter a credible airing. It brings together a compendium of evidence from all corners of the globe.....

It is important for scientists to remember that science, just like any other human activity, generates myths about itself, and most especially, about its perceived historical origins. And one myth that is being actively promoted in some quarters today, and which only dates back to the late Victorian period, is that science had to somehow break free from the superstitious shackles of the Christian region before it could develop.....

If anything, Richard Panek's new book shows that the story of how discoveries are made is just as exciting as the discoveries themselves. At its heart it's the story of scientists who made unexpected discoveries that challenged what we know about the Universe. ..

If you already have a good knowledge of the Apollo 11 mission, then it's probably not essential that you read Moonshot. For everyone else there is plenty to enjoy in Dan Parry's book...

Subtitled, ‘How Celestial Observations Have Shaped Civilization’, this book is an enthralling account that takes the reader through a vast array of cultures and their beliefs. The subject matter is very en-vogue at the moment with a plethora of books attempting to decipher new ancient and cultural evidence that seems to be emerging on a daily basis. As each succeeding generation adds a new interpretation, so the world appears to be getting closer to the truth of the ancients. ...

Unquestionably the Meade LXD series of telescopes and mounts have revolutionised GOTO systems, and Martin Peston can certainly call himself one of the world's leading experts on these mounts and their associated control. His book can best be described as a user manual on steroids, and quite probably something that anyone with an LXD mount should own as a reference...

I was rather incredulous of the subtitle of this book: Why We Have Already Found Extraterrestrial Life. Really? This was news to me. I had to read more!..

This book comes from astronomy author David Seargent, and is loosely based on a selection of his past articles published in the magazine Southern Astronomy;, later Sky and Space. The book still retains the disjointed, separated feel of a column but luckily this suits the subject matter and the read becomes reminiscent of a set of case studies involving the astronomically weird, wonderful, controversial and mysterious.....

Predicting the future is always a gamble. With several of the previous incumbents of the White House stating the intent to return first to the Moon and then on to Mars, many would have hoped that the future would have happened by now. But rumblings of budget cut proposals make the prospects seem as distant as ever. With Erik Seedhouse’s book, the planning and requirements for such a complex and difficult mission are laid out for all to see....

Organised by destination (in order: the Moon, Venus, Mars, giant planets, Mercury, the Sun, comets, dwarf planets and asteroids), the sequence at first seemed a little haphazard and given the title I expected the missions to appear to chronological order. It soon became clear that the planetary objects at least are presented in the order in which humans sent probes there (for those who like to follow timelines there’s a handy chronological chart in the appendix).....

This book is not only a personal diary but also a signpost to further studies on the ancients' views of the celestial heavens and, in particular, the planets. The first of a trilogy, the subtitle perfectly sets the scope: Envisioning Other Worlds, from Pleistocene to the Age of the Telescope...

The Japanese Kaguya mission to the Moon launched in 2007, spending two years observing our nearest neighbour before it was directed to impact the lunar surface. One of Kaguya’s unique features was a HD television camera that provided views of the lunar surface akin to what an astronaut would see. Thanks to some clever image processing by Motomaro Shirao that turns the HD video footage into wide-field stills, Shirao and co-author Chuck Wood – a lunar expert for the Planetary Science Institute in Arizona – present this pictorial chronicle of Kaguya’s adventures....

With panache and humour the SETI Institute’s senior astronomer Dr Seth Shostak regales the reader with the life and times of a scientist whose day job is to look for aliens. Sporting a forward by SETI pioneer Frank Drake, Shostak’s book reveals what would really happen if we detected a signal from extraterrestrials, using the false alarm of 1997 (when signals from the newly-launched SOHO spacecraft were for a short time mistaken for the real thing) as an example.....

Carl Sagan was an amazing person; a tremendous scientist and the best populariser of science that has ever lived. He was a complex man, steeped in scientific rigour and yet possessing a great imagination, whose quest to explore the planets and search for life sometimes got in the way of his personal life, at least until he met his third wife, Ann Druyan....

Among the books on my desk at home is a copy of Iosif Shklovskii and Carl Sagan’s Intelligent Life in the Universe, which was the first ever popular science book published about SETI, in 1966. It is fascinating to see how much has changed, and how much hasn’t changed, with the arrival of this hefty tome nearly half a century later...

This is not a book for beginners, but those with some grounding in stellar physics and also those who dislike equations can expect a delicious feast of mysteries and ways to solve them in store. I found it difficult, but incredibly rewarding, with some of the best 'Eureka!' moments I've yet experienced, especially in understanding dark matter.....

Meteorites - rocks from space that have fallen to the Earth - provide a unique insight into conditions present during the formation of the Solar System. They originate from asteroids, the Moon and Mars, and as a result can tell us a lot about how our local planetary neighbourhood has evolved....

Hubble, Window on the Universe is a hefty tome, measuring 37 x 30 x 2.5 centimetres and thus landing it squarely in the ‘coffee table’ genre of books, but in terms of presenting Hubble images, the bigger the better in my opinion!....

There are probably two catalogues well known to most deep sky observers; those of Messier and the New General Catalogue (NGC) of John Dreyer. Whilst the history of Messier’s catalogue has been well covered in numerous books the story of the New General Catalogue is not as well known. In this large tome Wolfgang Steinicke sets out to remedy this unfortunate state of affairs. Subtitled From Herschel to Dreyer's New General Catalogue it sets out to chart the history of the discovery of nebulae from the pioneering catalogues of Sir William Herschel through to the last of the visual discoveries that made up the NGC......

Television has always been associated with hysteria, no doubt because if only you can get yourself on it, you are assured of instant personal celebrity. Dwight Steven-Boniecki was born in Sydney, Australia, only months before Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon in July 1969, but has neatly captured the spontaneous marriage between space exploration and television. They started life together and grew up by feeding upon one another.....

One Small Step is a truly commemorative 'souvenir' of the first Apollo Moon landing, which celebrates its fortieth anniversary this July as part of the International Year of Astronomy...