Measure Solar System Objects And Their Movements For Yourself (Patrick Moore's Practical Astronomy Series), Springer.pdf

Patrick Moore’s Practical Astronomy Series
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Measure Solar
System
Objects and
Their Movements
for Yourself!
John D. Clark
John D. Clark
323 Wootton Road
King’s Lynn, Norfolk
PE30 3AX
United Kingdom
@
ISBN 978-0-387-89560-4 e-ISBN 978-0-387-89561-1
DOI: -0-387-89561-1
Library of Congress Control Number: PCN Applied for
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Preface
Until two-and-a-half years ago I had done no astronomy for 30 years. I had messed
about with a home-made telescope as a kid, and taken an astrophysics class which
barely mentioned the Solar System as part of my physics major, but that was it.
This course inspired me enough that I thought about studying astrophysics in
graduate school, but I chickened out, figuring I would never get a job. So I did a
PhD in semiconductor theory instead, only to find that there were no jobs in that
either; so I washed up in medical device development, and pretty well forgot about
astronomy.
In January 2006, my wife offered to buy me a 6-in. reflecting telescope. I knew so
little about it that for almost a year I had the equatorial mount pointing south
instead o