Extragalactic Astronomy and Cosmology: An Introduction

I have to second an earlier reviewer's take on this book - it's simply great. It is very up to date and thorough, and the writing is engaging. It's obvious Prof. Schneider loves astronomy and enjoys making it clear and accessible. Often I felt he went out of his way to include all the steps in a logical progression, whether or not he felt some were "obvious."The book's many graphs and full color photos are a particular highlight. Never have I seen visual aids used to such impressive and educational effect. Want to see the ellipses of individual stars orbiting the 4 million solar mass black hole in the center of the galaxy? The image is right here, along with dozens of others. Note that this is a book for people who are comfortable with calculus-based math and physics. But while the important math is there, complex derivations and pages of notation are thankfully absent. It seems that Prof. Schneider included only the math that needed to be there and no more, leaving words and graphs to tell as much of the story as possible.This book is almost like an encyclopedia: everything that is written covers essential topics succinctly yet completely. Three appendices cover fundamental astronomical concepts for those who would like a brief review. The section on recommended literature is right on the money and includes useful online references.While I think this book would be an excellent textbook there are no student questions or problems. Had they been included the book would have been much longer than its already considerable 460 pages. For those looking for exercises I recommend "An Introduction to Modern Astrophysics," 2nd edition (2006), by Carroll and Ostlie.The last 20 years has changed our understanding of the universe tremendously. This book does a great job of explaining all these new advances to those of us who aren't professional astronomers. Highly recommended.

I am only addressing the kindle version and not the substance of this book, for which I defer to the other reviewers. I have a hardback edition, which I never opened until I recently bought the digital edition for the kindle DX. I first opened the dgital version on the iphone 3G and I was pleasantly surprised to see the *color* pictures rendered beautifully on the iphone screen. I did not read very far, however, when I noticed an unfinished sentence at location 281-286 right above the legend for FIG. 1.3 in the digital version (iphone and kindle). I checked the paper edition. The text there is in two columns, and the text that is missing from the digital version appears right after FIG. 1.3 on the left column of the paper edition.I don't know whether there are other errors in the digital version. The purpose of this review is to alert readers and Amazon to exercise better quality control on the digital versions of the books.I gave four stars to bring attention to this issue. By the way, I prefer reading the book on the iphone because of the crisp resolution and color.

Can a textbook in cosmology really become a coffee-table book? In my house, yes, but then this book is really beautiful. The color photos are stunning, and there are enough of them to keep the topic very exciting, as if cosmology weren't rather awesome to begin with. Also many charts/diagrams, a bunch of formulas, and lots of highly informative text. If it sounds like I'm only looking at the pictures, though, I am not. I'm a physicist wanting to reacquaint myself with cosmology, which I enjoyed back in graduate school. The actual text is appropriate to a grad school audience, and it is quite thorough -- but not suitable to the general public.

I'm about 25 % through this book, and I'm reading it to decide if I should follow the Coursera/Caltech course Galaxies and Cosmology ([...]) that has this book on it's reading list. I still haven't decided, but the book is well written, about fairly modern developments in astronomy/cosmology (as far as I can tell, I'm not an expert). The math is within what I can wrap my head around (I'm a comp.sci. M. Sc.) and it's an enjoyable read: It's written enthusiastically but still thorough style, and it's got nice pictures ;) Will i take the Coursera course? I'm not sure, but I am sure that I will finish the last 75% of this book ;)

I could not have been more pleased to buy this book. I would recommend buying it to anyone interested in galactic astronomy and cosmology. From Brian Patton

A classic in the field! And it arrived in good condition! Will be using it in a course that I'm taking soon.

I highly recommend Peter Schneider's Introduction to Extragalactic Astronomy and Cosmology. Schneider book is written at an under graduate level. Schneider explains what is observed, the standard theories, and the current astronomical puzzles. His explanation of the mathematical models is very clear. In a few paragraphs he explains the fundamental equations that are used to create each model and then compares the models to observations. His emphasis is on the model as a tool to understand what is observed and to do or understand quantifiable analysis. Every subject covered is first rate.As others noted above the text is written on high quality paper and includes very clear pictures and diagrams to explain each subject. I have a copy of Carroll and Ostlie's An Introduction to Modern Astrophysics which I would also recommend, however, I found Schneider's textbook to be a better reference if you want to understand the fundamentals of each subject and how the different subjects and observations are connected.

Not necessarily a beginners book, but wonderfully readable and a great assessment of where we are in understanding the cosmos and a great description of the tools and techniques we are using to achieve understanding. I was mildly disappointed that there were no problems sets at the end of chapters, but I have plenty of other books where the math is oppressive. This is a nice balance.

El libro es de Astrofísica y el color es muy importante en esta materia, la copia del libro que recibí estaba editada en blanco y negro, o sea todas las fotos estaban en blanco y negro. Fallo increíble!!!!