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Shot in the dark - nostalgia trip

gnomus

By gnomus
in The Astro Lounge

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gnomus

gnomus

Posted
Posted

I wonder if anyone might be able to help me find something obscure. About 40 years ago I would regularly take part in my school "book club" - this inolved a magazine coming round with the latest offerings. (I believe that this was a nationwide thing. I schooled in Scotland but my wife had the same thing in her school in northwest England.)

Anyway, one of the books I bought fired up my interest in the heavens. That book is long gone. For various reasons, I am on a bit of a nostalgia trip at the moment and I would really like to track down and get hold of another copy. My problem is that I cannot recall the title of the book or its author. Here is what I can remember:

The book was coffee-table sized. It was, however, quite thin (probably well under a 100 pages). The book consisted of a series of pictures - these were coloured paintings which purported to represent 'astronomical' images. My recollection is that all (or very nearly all) of these were an 'artist's impression' of what it would be like to be standing on the surface of the planets in our solar system. Some may have been views of hovering above the planet. I believe that some of Jupiters moons were depicted. I recall that the final image was a view from the surface of Pluto.

If anyone could help me remember the title/author of this kiddies book, I would be very grateful.

Regards

Steve M

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MAN or ASTROMAN

MAN or ASTROMAN

Posted
Posted

I don't know of that particular book,but the astronomical paintings make me think of the artist who's surname was 'Hardy'.

 Can't recall his full name, but I do know that you often saw his work on 'The Sky At Night' programme,in the 1970's

 Perhaps someone can enlighten both of us as regards his full name!

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gnomus

gnomus

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I don't know of that particular book,but the astronomical paintings make me think of the artist who's surname was 'Hardy'.

 Can't recall his full name, but I do know that you often saw his work on 'The Sky At Night' programme,in the 1970's

 Perhaps someone can enlighten both of us as regards his full name!

OK.  This is getting ridiculous.  I have been wondering about this for a good few months and you chaps all but solve it in 20 minutes!  A quick search revealed that the artist in question is David A Hardy.  A further search revealed that in 1972 he and Patrick Moore published a 66 page large format book called "Challenge of the Stars".  I am now nearly convinced that this is the book I am looking for.  Would anyone have a copy of this?  If so, could they perhaps post a couple of photographs or scans of some of the images (especially the Pluto image) to see if this jogs my memory?

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John

John

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Posted

It's a great book - I have a copy of the revised version "The New Challenge of the Stars" published in 1977. Same authors and artist and the same format but it just includes some of the discoveries made between 1972 and 1977.

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gnomus

gnomus

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It's a great book - I have a copy of the revised version "The New Challenge of the Stars" published in 1977. Same authors and artist and the same format but it just includes some of the discoveries made between 1972 and 1977.

Aargh - if "New" Challenge was published in 1977, there is a very good chance that that was the book I had (I would have been 14/15 years old).  OK I have ordered a £3 copy to find out (It should sit nicely with the earlier "Challenge" book that is already on its way).

Thanks again to everyone who helped with this.  The image of Pluto (that can be accessed via one of the links someone posted in this thread) is definitely the one I remember.

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Paul M

Paul M

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Great thread.

I miss my old books :(

Anyway, it's taken me a while after reading this thread to find the book I used to have which I knew D A H had illustrated. I couldn't remember the author but eventually Google found an image of the front cover and I recognised it: http://www.grian-books.com/catalog/The-Hamlyn-Guide-to-Astronomy-p-22337.html

I have fond memories of that book, not least because of the fantastic artwork.

It's worth remembering that professionals back then weren't producing images anything like as good as many contributors to SGL now do. The imagination of a good artist made much, much better viewing!!

That changed, for me at least, when I bought a beautiful book by David Malin.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Malin

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John

John

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I was rather captivated before, I came across David A Hardy's work, by the illustrations by L F Ball in "The Observers Book of Astronomy" :smiley:

I did find it hard to reconcile the images that I was seeing with my 60mm Tasco refractor with these Jupiter pictures but at least I was seeing some of it !

(I've borrowed this image from the web I ought to say)

post-118-0-23035900-1440365230.jpg

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