Book Review

THE COSMIC TOURIST

By Brian May, Patrick Moore and Chris Lintott

The Cosmic Tourist
The Cosmic Tourist

Co authors, Brian May, Patrick Moore and Chris Lintott , cover price £25, but shop around.

I bought my copy for less than £10.

This book looks at astronomy from a different angle. All three authors take off in an imaginary space craft named "Ptomely", their mission is to visit 100 of their favourite places in the universe.

The starting point, of course, is Earth and then on to the Moon, with plenty of both pictures, and as you would expect from the three author / cosmonauts, informative text.

The first 100 pages are taken up with wandering around the Solar system, visiting planets, asteroids, moons and comets. Then they are off to the Kuiper Belt, 12 light hours away. Finally the last stop, the Oort Cloud, one light year distant.

Our intrepid explorers take a close look at many nebulas; globular and open clusters and galaxies, on their way to the edge of the observable universe. Some 13,000,000,000 light years distant.

All in all 109 pages of informative and amusing reading.