Cosmic Phenomena

  • Gabriele Vanin

If it's the showier aspects of astronomy that you're after, you can't go far wrong with comets, meteor showers and eclipses. All three astronomical wonders are explained and illustrated in Cosmic Phenomena by Gabriele Vanin (Firefly, $35). The photograph above was taken in Kazakhstan during the 1981 solar eclipse, and shows a bright prominence, together with delicate coronal polar plumes.