Product Description

This well-established textbook gives a general but comprehensive introduction to positional astronomy. Originally based on the author's lecture courses at Cambridge University, it is intended primarily for undergraduates, but, due to its comprehensive nature, it is a very useful reference text for research workers in many branches of astronomy and space physics. The author considers the night sky as the celestial sphere and powerfully exploits the methods of spherical geometry. Most problems in which the precise determination of a heavenly body's position in the sky is important are considered in theoretical detail, and the necessary formulae are derived to a precision that is sufficient for all but the most specialist purposes. The present revision has ensured that the terminology and treatment correspond precisely to current astronomical practice. A guiding principle has been to re-establish compatibility with the Astronomical Ephemeris and, to a lesser extent, with the fuller explanations of the Explanatory Supplement to the Astronomical Ephemeris and the American Ephemeris and Nautical Almanac. Fairly frequent comments added to the text indicate the sometimes modified relevance of the subject matter to modern astronomy. A number of additional exercises help to illustrate the new material.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #526084 in Books
• Published on: 1977-07-29
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 448 pages

Customer Reviews

Unsurpassed
Textbooks that remain in print for more than a few years with their contents essentially intact are a rare commidity nowadays. The fact that this little book has been around for almost 75 years in essentially its same form for such a period is a testament both to the timelessness of the material it contains and to the expository abilities of its author.

Written by William Marshall Smart, a prominent British professor of astronomy and a prolific writer on the subject, it covers almost all aspects of positional astronomy, including the geometry of the celestial sphere, co-ordinate systems, measurement of time, precession, nutation, aberration, reduction of astronomical photographs, and even eclipses and occultations. Written in Smart's pedantic but eminently readable style, it is easily consumed in a few days or even hours by anyone with a working knowledge of college algebra, trigonometry, and elementary calculus. No other work on the subject has surpassed it for clarity and rigor. Consider that another of Smart's books, "Celestial Mechanics" (Longmans, 1953; reprinted 1960), is so revered that it now sells for several hundred dollars or more on the used book market (despite its rather common availability).

After Smart's death in 1975, revisions for "Spherical Astronomy" were undertaken by R. Green (author of a separate book on the subject) in order to keep it up-to-date with current astronomical practice, mainly in the area of accurate timekeeping in the face of the variable rate of rotation of the earth.

A classic little book whose reading (and re-reading) is like sipping a fine old Claret from the wine cellar.

The Best Textbook on Spherical Astronomy
I'm a student of astronomy, and for last 2 years I've used this book for my main reference. It covers every aspect of spherical astronomy from the very beginnings: Basic concepts in mathematics (the spherical triangle) and its formulas. And then it slowly advances to more practical topics in astronomy: the coordinate system of astronomy and its transformation from one system to another, the reduction in object's position: refraction and aberration, timekeeping system (calendar included), planetary and solar motion, calculating eclipses (lunar and solar) and occultations, and even more interesting topics: astrophotography (if you want to photograph the skies, it helps to know something about spherical astronomy). In short, this books covers all aspect of spherical astronomy and it's application. Furthermore, this book has a variety of problems at the end of each chapter, from theoretical, proofing formula, to practical. The only weakness of this book is the lack of solution for some problems. But this book is still the best. It's amazing for a book written in 1926!