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More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
This book brings together the finest collection available of star clusters, galaxies, nebulae and other such spectacular phenomena caught on film. Each beautiful image, made from a series of delicate yet rich platinum prints, is accompanied by a clear and engaging caption. Malin's short texts (approximately 100 words) describe the depicted phenomena and some of the mythology surrounding them. The book is divided into nine sections, using the constellations as a framework to identify the positions of the images in the sky. Each section is introduced by a short text describing the featured constellations and a celestial map. In his introductory essay, Malin outlines the history and importance of photographing the night sky, describing how very long exposures taken with a telescope reveal stars and distant galaxies too faint to be seen by the eye. By studying galaxies, we learn about our origins and perhaps our destiny and, the origins of the ingredients of life and the destinies of stars like the Sun and the planets associated with them. Much of our current knowledge on these subjects was gleaned from black and white photographs like those in this book, which were originally taken for scientific purposes. Using the world's most sophisticated telescopes and his own revolutionary techniques, Malin brings us awe-inspiring images of distant worlds and amazing phenomena. He is a pioneer of space photography and has invented new ways of capturing the unseen universe on photographic plates, leading to the discovery of two new types of galaxies. His photographs capture light that has travelled immense distances, sometimes thousands of light years, to reach us.
About the Author
David Malin was formerly Photographic Scientist at the Anglo-Australian Observatory, New South Wales and is currently Adjunct Professor of Scientific Photography at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. Winner of the prestigious Lennart Nilsson prize, his pioneering photographs of space have revolutionized understanding of the universe.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
Nice book, well printed and put together. There are a pictures of a wide range of astronomical objects shown in the book. My only (minor) gripe is that the whole book is in black and white. Yes, I know that pretty much all of the colour images of space are false colour, but it would have been nice to have seen a few colour plates in the book.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
1 review
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Humbling and Awe Inspiring
1 Feb 2010
Format:Hardcover
When our Bronze Age ancestors first cast their gaze to the sky and invented legends to explain the shapes the stars formed, never in their wildest dreams could they have imagined that one day the majesty and wonder of the night sky would be captured on photographs and bound in a book for our enjoyment. Astronomer-cum-photographer David Malin delivers galaxies, constellations, and nebulae into our hands in Ancient Light.
The book is divided into sections based around the constellations to establish the positions of the images captured here. In the section titled Fornax, Sculptor, and the South Celestial Pole, the Helix nebula in Aquarius seems to be nothing less than an enormous and otherworldly eye staring back at the viewer. On pages 86 and 87, the Sombrero galaxy in the Virgo constellation (so named for its resemblance of a broad-brimmed Mexican hat) expands off the page and into the imagination.
Simultaneously humbling and awe-inspiring, Ancient Light both entertains and educates. Malin reveals his techniques for capturing the images and provides information a wide range of pertinent information about the stars and galaxies, from the dust clouds that birth stars to the myths behind the constellations. This is a must-read by any definition of the phrase.
The book is divided into sections based around the constellations to establish the positions of the images captured here. In the section titled Fornax, Sculptor, and the South Celestial Pole, the Helix nebula in Aquarius seems to be nothing less than an enormous and otherworldly eye staring back at the viewer. On pages 86 and 87, the Sombrero galaxy in the Virgo constellation (so named for its resemblance of a broad-brimmed Mexican hat) expands off the page and into the imagination.
Simultaneously humbling and awe-inspiring, Ancient Light both entertains and educates. Malin reveals his techniques for capturing the images and provides information a wide range of pertinent information about the stars and galaxies, from the dust clouds that birth stars to the myths behind the constellations. This is a must-read by any definition of the phrase.
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