Beyond : Visions Of The Interplanetary Probes

I was fortunate to catch a smaller version of the exhibit, "The Smithsonian Presents: BEYOND, Visions of Planetary Landscapes", at the Petaluma Museum a couple weeks ago. The photos blew me away, and I immediately went on-line to see if I could find more.What I found was this book, by Michael Benson, who is behind the digital processing that created the photos in the exhibit and the book. Digital processing is needed because these photos are created from montages of the many individual satellite photos needed to cover a large area. I decided to spring for the hardcover version of this book, and am glad I did. There are several fold-out images, and the quality of a hardback was worth it.I was ready for a coffee-table book with great photos. What surprised, me, though, was how much I enjoyed the accompanying text. The photographic images are first and foremost in this book, but this is also great reading! For example, here's the beginning of the chapter on the planet Venus: "We shouldn't read too much into the fact that Venus, nominally the planet of love, was revealed by squadrons of Soviet and American probes in the 1970s to be a broiling hell, with a 900 degree Fahrenheit surface temperature hotter even than Mercury's and an atmosphere busy drizzling such Valentines Day surprises as sulfuric acid. Far more interesting is the fact that the surface of this inferno - a place where the rocks glow: a place as pressurizd as a submarine trench - was revealed to be so incomparably beautiful by the unwinking radar eye of the early 1990s Magellan probe."As mentioned, each image is the result of digitally combining, with the greatest care, the multiple images from the various probes. This is even harder than it sounds, because a finished photo, covering any great geographic distance, is the combination of many different passes of the satellite, as it continually orbits the planet taking photos of a slightly different longitude each time.Many of the photos are black & white, but there are also spectacular color photos. Benson explains that, as much as possible, he reflected only "true" colors. Neptune, for example, is really blue, just as Mars is really red. The only exception to this are the photos of the sun itself. Obviously, the "true" color of the sun is simply bright white light. What Benson gives us, though, are photos taken in wavelengths that can't be seen by the naked eye. They give us a sun with a varying roiling incredible surface, where the cooler areas (those only 6000 degrees or so) are darker than the rest.This book has many more photos than were shown in the exhibit I saw, but, on the other hand is missing one of the most arresting. This was a view of Saturn, showing the rings exactly side-on. The depth of the rings is so narrow, compared to the planet they circle, that in the black & white photo, the rings were reduced to a thin white line in front of the planet. It looked like a crease in the paper or an optical mistake! I was fascinated.This book was published in 2003 and still counts Pluto as a planet. It doesn't make any difference, because no probe had ever been sent to Pluto, anyway. That will hopefully change, in a far distant edition. The U.S. launched the First Pluto Space Mission in January 2006. Unfortunately, the probe won't reach Pluto until 2014 at the earliest.If you can get to the Smithsonian exhibit, I highly recommend it. There are oversized 3-5 feet high photos that are wonderful, and this book is the perfect accompaniment.Happy Reader

Received this book for Christmas. It is very simply put- Absolutely Gorgeous!I love sitting down with the kids and looking at each picture, discussing what is is and admiring the spectacular beauty that has been captured. This is an amazing way to introduce them to the wonder of the universe beyond this small bubble we call earth.It would have been nicer in hardcover.

I've bought this book three times, once for my father, once for my husband, and once for my mother. The pictures are vivid and the information mind-boggling. Every so often my teenagers pull it out and page through it. I highly recommend it.

got as gift for someone. . loved how it looked

My girlfriend loves space and loves books with the pictures of everything that's out there very clear and high resolution photos

I went looking for a book of photos of the solar system after viewing a fabulous display at the Smithsonian. This book has absolutely gorgeous photos of the solar system. It was exactly what I wanted. However, I tried to be frugal and buy the paperback version. After I gently looked through it, the binding was already falling apart. Buy this product but spring for the hardback version!

I purchased this book on the premise that since it had a publication date of 2008, it would have fairly new pictures from the later space probe missions such as Cassini-Huygens and MESSENGER. Unfortunately upon opening the book and skimming through it and checking the copyright date, it does not have any photos later than 2003 in it. I am very disappointed that the publisher would choose to republish a 5 year-old astronomy book without revising it with newer material first. Nevertheless, this book contains a ton of pictures from all the planets in the Solar System taken by Voyager, Galileo, Mariner, Viking, the various circa 2003 Mars probes, Magellan, and an in-transit Cassini probe at Jupiter. If you're looking for the latest pictures circa 2008-2009, you'll be very disappointed by this book. If you just want beautiful pictures of the planets this book has it in spades.

These unique planets still have so much to teach us, but so far...we have learned much thanks to the Voyager spacecraft. What these books teach me is they open my mind to want to learn more...to explore our solar system more.To explore our universe more. If you see one picture from this book, then you will know what I mean.....

This large hardback book presents some fantastic images! Truly awe-inspiring.Indeed, these are amongst the most beautiful planetary photos I've ever seen. The images cover the 8 main planets, and are of exceptional quality. If you're a fan of astronomy and/or planetary science, and enjoy looking at celestial photos, you'll love this book.I wish I had adequate wall space to display all of these images in frames. I could sit and view them for hours.

I had always been a huge fan of space and astronomy, ever since I was a kid. Over the years, I'd seen countless images on television, on the Internet, in books, magazines and newspapers. I thought I'd become thoroughly familiar with the lunar surface, the valleys on Mars, the moons of Jupiter and the rings of Saturn. I thought I'd seen all the best photographs. I thought, there was little that could really surprise me anymore.I was therefore STUNNED by the number of photographs in "Visions" which I'd never seen before, the sheer quality of each individual image, and the sense of "newness" they all brought. This book is a marvel! A simply amazing and beautiful collection of space images that will appeal to everyone.I doubt you'll find a more impressive collection of photographs of our solar system anywhere. Please don't even hesitate to get this book... you won't be disappointed. The shots of Mars and the incredible variety of its landscapes and surface features are particularly mind-blowing, as are the numerous fold-out panoramas throughout the book.Fully recommended!

This book is amazing, the pictures of the planets with the moons over them, are my faverite.The pictures are clear, bright and stunning. Worth every penney :)

I bought this book based on others good recommendations, but having received the book I thought it was poor. There are much better solar system books on the market with better photos and they also have text. There is very little text in this book just a mixed bag of photos some with no caption. Overall there are far too many poor black and white photos, not enough colour ones.There are 40 plus pages of photographs of the Earth and Moon which I thought was too much. The Earth photographs are poor and the Moon photos are also poor being old and taken in 1966 and 1967 and there are no lunar surface shots taken by astronauts, a surprising omission. There are 30 pages on Venus, surprisingly just one atmosphere photo, the rest are 1992 black white radar surface shots. These are okay, there is no text just titles. The Sun gets 15 pages and this colour section is good. Mercury gets 12 pages, just one colour photo and black and white pictures from 1974. Mars has 65 pages of photographs. There are loads of unlabeled black and white orbit photos of the Mars surface and the reader has no idea what they are looking at. A very poor selection of meaningless photographs. The limited number of colour photographs are much better. A big negative aspect is that there are only two pages of surface rover images included. There are 12 pages on asteroids with some good black and white photographs. There are around 60 pages of photos on the Jovian system and this is the best section of the book. Good colour photos of Jupiter. The colour pictures of Io would be good but they have been made too yellow. The many pictures of Europa are very good , but the photos are almost all disappointingly black and white. There are only 4 pictures of ganymede and just two of Callisto. Saturn gets a measily 20 pages, a massive disappointment of this book. Only the rings and planet are covered. A major omission is that there are no photograhs of Saturn's moons. The Uranus system is a very poor 6 pages, included in this is one picture of Ariel and just two pictures of Miranda. No ring pictures are included. Neptune gets 14 pages and the colour photographs are quite good. There are no photographs of the dwarf planets another poor omission. A couple of short essays finish off the book.I think this is a poor solar system book with too many omissions and too many lacklustre black and white photographs. There is no astronomical text or data tables. The Saturn section was particularly poor. The Planets A Journey Through The Solar System by Giles Sparrow is a much better solar system book, with a much better choice of full colour pictures of all the solar sytem objects, there are no omissions in Giles Sparrow's book. The descriptions are much better to.

El libro está en un estado excelente, prácticamente nuevo, tan sólo con la cubierta un poco gastada por un uso normal, perfectamente aceptable y se corresponde con lo indicado por el vendedor. Interior en perfecto estado.