Mapping the Universe Author:Paul Murdin Author: Carlton Books ISBN: 978-1-84732-885-4 Price: £30 (Hb), 124pp
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Subtitled An Interactive History of Astronomy this tactile book immerses you into the story of astronomy from Stonehenge and other ancient astronomical buildings, clocks and telescopes, through an Earth-centred Universe and astronomy’s relationship with the church, eminent names including Copernicus, Brahe, Galileo and Kepler, all the way to modern astronomy and the likes of the Hubble, Spitzer and Chandra space telescopes.

Beautiful drawings are mixed with the latest full page spacecraft imagery and the facsimile items really set this book apart and bring the story of astronomy to life. In the year in which anticipation for the transit of Venus is rapidly building I was particularly taken with the reproduced book cover depicting the 1874 transit of Venus, as seen by Henry Chamberlain Russell, the Australian government Astronomer and Meteorologist of Sydney Observatory. Galileo’s sketches of the Moon and his notes of the observation of Jupiter and four of its moons that would later become known as the Galilean satellites in his honour, along with Caroline Herschel’s sketches of her comet in 1786, are also fascinating.

The life and death of stars, the birth of planets and their exploration is also presented, while dark matter and dark energy, and life elsewhere in the Universe are dealt with in the final chapters. This is an excellent account of the history of astronomy as seen through the eyes of the astronomers who paved the way for today’s understanding, and there is plenty to learn for the science-hungry too with excellent overviews of the planets, moons, stars and galaxies.

This is more than just a book. With the amount of care and attention that has clearly gone into not only researching and writing this aesthetic title but also in reproducing the historical documents, I was surprised to find that it only cost £30.

Emily Baldwin