Awesome Observations Album and Music Offers

In the spirit of National Geographic’s top-selling Orbit, this large-format, full-color volume stands alone in revealing more than 200 of the most spectacular images from the Hubble Space Telescope during its lifetime, to the very eve of the 2008 final shuttle mission to the telescope. Written by two of the world’s foremost authorities on space history, Hubble: Imaging Space and Time illuminates the solar system’s workings, the expansion of the universe, the birth and death of stars, the formation of planetary nebulae, the dynamics of galaxies, and the mysterious force known as "dark energy."

The potential impact of this book cannot be overstressed: The 2008 servicing mission to install new high-powered scientific instruments is especially high profile because the cancellation of the previous mission, in 2004, caused widespread controversy. The authors reveal the inside story of Hubble’s beginnings, its controversial early days, the drama of its first servicing missions, and the creation of the dynamic images that reach into the deepest regions of visible space, close to the time when the universe began.

A wealth of astonishing images leads us to the very edge of known space, setting the stage for the new James Webb Space Telescope, scheduled to launch in 2013. Find the stunning panoramic of Carina Nebula, detailing star birth as never before; a jet from a black hole in one galaxy striking a neighboring galaxy; a jewel-like collection of galaxies from the early years of the universe; and a giant galaxy cannibalizing a smaller galaxy.

Timed for the 2008 shuttle launch and coinciding with the 400th anniversary of Galileo’s first telescope, Hubble: Imaging Space and Time accompanies a high-profile exhibit at the National Air and Space Museum and will be featured on the popular NASM website..
Price: $24.75 [Notify me when price goes down.]

An artist's survival guide, written by and for working artists. The authors explore the way art gets made, the reasons it doesn't get made, and the nature of the difficulties that cause so many artists to give up along the way..
Price: $6.97 [Notify me when price goes down.]

The modern classic, completely updated.

The newest edition of The Backyard Astronomer's Guide includes the latest data and answers the questions most often asked by home astronomers, from beginners to experienced stargazers. Terence Dickinson and Alan Dyer provide expert guidance on the right types of telescopes and other equipment; photographing the stars through a telescope; and star charts, software and other references. They cover daytime and twilight observing, planetary and deep-sky observing, and much more.

With over 500 color photographs and illustrations, The Backyard Astronomer's Guide is one of the most valuable, beautiful and user-friendly astronomy books ever produced.

New and updated for this edition:

• A 20-page full-color Atlas of the Milky Way provides location and context for hundreds of celestial objects mentioned throughout the book.
• A chapter on Astrophotography with Digital Cameras specifies what equipment works best and how to use it to collect a color gallery of celestial portraits.
• Telescopes for Recreational Astronomy features assessments of a wide range of new telescopes, from models for beginners to those for veteran astronomy enthusiasts, with special emphasis on computerized telescopes and how they work.
• Accessory Catalog spotlights the best of the accessories and flags the frivolous and irrelevant.
• Three practical appendices: Polar Aligning Your Telescope; Optics Cleaning and Collimation; Testing Your Telescope Optics.

Any serious home astronomer must have this superb guide as an ongoing reference.

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Price: $29.99 [Notify me when price goes down.]

The Night Sky is a rotating star finder (planisphere) that allows the user to recognize the constellations for any time of night, any day of the year. The sky appears to rotate (due to the rotation and orbital motion of the earth), so to be successful recognizing the constellations a beginner needs to know which stars are above the horizon at any time.

This is the full-sized version of The Night Sky suitable for the 30°-40° latitude zone (southern half of the US, North Africa, Middle East, etc.). We have versions for the following latitude zones: 50°-60°, 40°-50°, 30°-40°, 20°-30°, and the Southern Hemisphere. We also have pocket-sized versions available for the same latitude zones..
Price: $10.99 [Notify me when price goes down.]

The perfect companion volume for Hale-Bopp watchers, this guide explores the fabulous mysteries above, from planets in our solar system to the constellations in both the Northern and Southern hemispheres, stars, galaxies (including the Milky Way), nebulae, astronomical bodies, objects, phenomena, and -- yes -- comets. Night Sky provides a concise guided tour of the heavens with 48 monthly sky charts of the northern sky and 88 constellation charts, each offering a detailed map of individual constellations. Essays on the universe, the solar system, and constellations introduce the reader to the wonders of the sky. .
Price: $5.98 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Majestic spiral arms of a remote galaxy shimmer from the combined light of 50 billion stars. The ethereal curtains of the aurora borealis ripple across the night sky. Vast clouds of gas and dust, 10,000 times wider than the solar system, pervade the galaxy. Captured by the cameras of talented amateur astronomers and by the world's most powerful research telescopes, the universe's impressive wonders are presented in Astronomy 2009 in brilliant high-resolution color.

This 12-image collection was compiled by stargazing authority Terence Dickinson, author of NightWatch. He brings a wealth of practical experience to the calendar's diary of predicted celestial events, which range from meteor showers to eclipses.

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Price: $6.82 [Notify me when price goes down.]

At first glance, the challenge of astrophotography may appear daunting. But not only are spectacular results possible, they are easy to learn with the step-by-step instructions provided in Stephan Seip's Digital Astrophotography: A Guide to Capturing the Cosmos. Today, amateurs can produce images that only twenty years ago a large professional observatory would have been proud of; and this book shows you how.

Learn how to:

Set up your camera for optimum results

Focus your camera for razor-sharp images

Take beautiful night shots with a simple compact digital camera, a tripod, and a telescope

Use a DSLR camera to shoot the Sun, Moon, stars, star clusters, and nebulae through your telescope

Get brilliant images of planets with a Webcam

Capture remote galaxies with a charge-coupled device (CCD) camera just like a pro

Also included are lessons on the processing that is done in the "studio" after your shoot, including how to:

Shoot RAW format images and improve them with calibration frames

Take short exposures of faint deep-sky objects and combine them into a longer exposure

Perform brightness, contrast, and color correction

Make corrections to correct for vignetting and uneven field illumination

Process your images for stunning results

Equipment requirements for astrophotography range from nothing but a simple camera and tripod to a multi-thousand dollar computer controlled telescope equipped with a CCD auto-guider and separate guide-scope. Researching the best equipment for your needs is a task in itself. Seip helps you to sort out which cameras are best for the various celestial objects, what to look for when buying a camera, and what accessories you really need.

The rewards of this fascinating hobby, as the author says, "Grants you unforgettable hours under the night sky; it allows you to produce aesthetically rewarding and lasting results. Astrophotography is a love-match between physics, photography, art, and digital image processing. It is exciting!".
Price: $17.54 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Country music superstar Trace Adkins isn’t exactly known for holding back what’s on his mind. And if the millions of albums he’s sold are any indication, when Trace talks, people listen. Now, in A Personal Stand, Trace Adkins delivers his maverick manifesto on politics, personal responsibility, fame, parenting, being true to yourself, hard work, and the way things oughta be.

In his inimitable pull-no-punches style, Trace gives us the state of the union as he sees it, from the lessons of his boyhood in small-town Louisiana to what he’s learned headlining concerts around the world. Trace has worked oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico, been shot in the heart, been inducted into the Grand Ole Opry, and braved perhaps the greatest challenge of all: being the father of five daughters. And shaped by these experiences, he’s sounding off.

• I’m incredibly frustrated with the state of American politics. If there were a viable third party, I’d seriously consider joining it.
• If anybody wonders who the good guys are and who the bad guys are in this world, just look at the way we teach our children as opposed to the way the fundamentalist Muslims teach their children.
• Organized labor now exists for the sake of organized labor, and not for the workers it once protected.
• I believe the easiest way to solve the illegal immigration enforcement problem is to go after the employers who hire illegal aliens.
• As a society, we’re unwilling to sacrifice our luxuries and our conveniences in order to conserve. We won’t change until we’re forced to.
• The war on terror is like herpes. People can live with it, but it’ll flare up from time to time.

Brash, ballsy, persuasive, and controversial, A Personal Stand isn’t just the story of Trace Adkins’s life; it’s the story of what life can teach all of us..
Price: $14.27 [Notify me when price goes down.]