Astrophysics Books

[joeWyncoll]

Looking for a book(s) that covers the basics of astrophysics-star types, supernovas and the like-does anyone know of any good books like this? Or any general and interesting books on astronomy?

[starminder]

I would suggest Introduction to Modern Astrophysics by Carroll and Ostlie. http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Modern-Astrophysics-Bradley-Carroll/dp/0805304029

This book is generally the gold standard for introductory astronomy courses that cover basics of stars types and stellar evolution. You do need to be comfortable with introductory calculus and some basic physics. Otherwise I would suggest "The Cosmic Perspective" by Bennett et al. it contains very little math and physics but still covers all the topics one would find interesting about astronomy. There are many different issues but honestly I suggest you find an older one and save a few bucks. New editions are designed to rob undergraduates of the few dollars they have and contain very little new material.

[LeeB]

also look at the open university press they do a number of astrophysics , stellar text books. I am just finishing an astrophysics degree with them and all have been superb, the third level book entitled originally!! astrophysics is quite hard going but superb. ps. get you maths up to scratch if it isn't already, decent competence in calculus is a must if your understanding is to be improved.

[Tiki]

'Universe' by Kaufman could well be what you are looking for. I'd imagine it to be cheap second-hand.

[Ben Ritchie]

Kaler's "stars and their spectra" is a good introduction to stellar astrophysics and the MK classification system; there's no serious maths in it, and it's very well written.

"Stellar Spectral Classification" by Gray and Corbally is more in-depth, and an excellent reference

[NoSiriusly]

+1 for Universe by Kauffman. Very good text book. Got it for Christmas and it really fills in the knowledge gaps.

[Ronnie67]

I have a few books on Universe by kauffman, found them cheap on ebay, its amazing what you find there, check it out could have some interesting read

[cjoe]

Will check these books out after I finish the three roads to quantum gravity by lee smolin, thanks.

[ollypenrice]

Anything by Kaler. Cosmic Clouds, Extreme Stars... He's great.

While you're into Smolin don't miss The Life Of the Cosmos. Right or wrong, the way of thinking is utterly inspiring.

Olly