After picking this book up at a Sam's club out of curiosity I found that I couldn't put it down and ended up putting it in the cart. My companion is a begining Astronomy buff and he couldn't get enough eighther. We were reading it to each other and trying to read it at the same time. We have learned alot from this book and have put it to good use with his new telescope. I highly remommed this book to the person who has always wanted to get started in astronomy!

This beautifully produced book is a superb addition to the library of any backyard astronomer or anyone from eight to eighty. It's a best buy for several reasons.
The first is its outstanding quality. The second is the BEWARE!.
This book is actually a softcover, otherwise identical reprint of "Advanced Skywatching", ISBN: 0783549415, published in 1997, also by Time-Life.
Perhaps Time-Life used this subterfuge to catch unwary on-line shoppers that already own "Advanced Skywatching" (as I do), since you can't view the contents on-line to discover you already own the same book under a different name.

The complaint on the star charts about this book (or its twin) not covering the entire sky is not critical.
There isn't room on anyone's bookshelf for all the possible fun sky-hops, of which this book and its twin present abundant excellent examples. There are more and different, also challenging and instructive ones in another fine volume, "Turn Left at Orion", and many others.

Not to worry if you get sucked in. This one makes a fine gift for your favorite grandchild as mine will.
Add this to your "must have" list if you don't already own its twin. If you do, buy it anyhow and give it to someone special.
The price is astonishingly low for the fine content.

This is another sumptuously produced book from the National Geographic Society. The text is a little "mickey-mouse" by my standards, but the photos, many from NASA planetary missions are Hubble, are beautifully reproduced and well worth the price of admission.

The book is divided into sections: inner planets, outer planets, and deep space, with text and photos (in that order) for each.
Nicely done and well worth browsing.

The book goes from the sun and the solar system, through galaxies and nebulas, up to the edges of the known universe, giving great and worthy images (and info) in each "station", all printed on a high quality paper, of course. Especially good are the images from the galaxies and nebulas. Those from the near planets I liked a bit less, and I've seen better ones elsewhere...
The text all the way is well written and enjoyable to read. It gives, in addition to the info about each object, some nice (but basic) introduction to astronomy in general - things such as how distance from stars is measured, how light coming from objects is analyzed, astronomy history etc...
However, as it covers the entire universe, it is, as you might think (considering it's size...), pretty basic - both the images and the info. It gives just a small (but good!) taste of everything, not going too deep anywhere.

All in all, it's an excellent book, but I think it'll be worthy to you only if you don't have many other astronomy books, since it's pretty basic.

Although I started out rating this a "4", I changed my mind and gave it a "5", mainly because I found it for half price and also because some of these pictures are so marvelous that it's scary. You've never seen the Eagle or Helix nebulae like this before and some of the pictures within our own solar system give you a good idea of what it must be like if you're out there--scary. Away from Earth and in a desolate zone millions of miles away. Galaxies, star clusters, etc.. are so much more defined than the photographs of these wonders that come from Earth-based observatories. No atmospheric turbulence and also great photos from the greatest scope man has invented. Galileo would marvel at the photographs of Jupiter and its Moons, which he first discovered long ago. He sure didn't see them like this.

David is an enthusiastic and inspiring writer. This book can effectively take you through the very beginnings of variable star observation and set you on your way to becoming a productive observer able to submit valid data to organizations like the American Association of Variable Star Observers. Get it.

A great book for the amateur astronomer that is looking for new stars to observe or wishes to contribute observations of variable stars to professional organizations. David Levy is an excellent writer and does a fine job of explaining the tricks and tips of observing these peculiar objects.

Very good self explanation with updated information.

The book fails to offer a comprehensive perspective and is certainly not the definitive work described in the publisher's promo. The "S.A. Book of the Cosmos" is neither up to date nor does it provide a coherent retrospective view. It flits about from topic to topic and leaves important questions unanswered. In my opinion, there are far better books on cosmology for the casually interested reader: Look for titles by Harrison, Gribbon, Davies, Guth, and Thorne.

This book is not as bad as others have indicated here. It is more an anthology of Cosmology related "essays" from Scientific American than it is an academic treatment of cutting-edge Cosmology.

If you want hardcore Cosmology, look elsewhere. But if you want brief, easy-to-read overviews of current ideas in Cosmology, this should be an enjoyable book for you.

Yes, there is a general lack of pictures, but the color pictures that are present are very nice. Besides, I am more interested in the content of the text.

I found the first three historical essays to be of special interest. One is by Einstein and concerns Relativity. The most fascinating for me is the one by Erwin Schrodinger titled "What is Matter?". This article alone was worth the price of the book for me. Schrodinger's essay helped me to understand, more than any other book, what we mean by the terms matter, energy, and force.

why on earth, no pun intended, would anybody be disappointed in this terrific book that brings together cosmological thought from Einstein to Sagan, all in one package?

This is a rich source for further meditation on the cosmos, nicely designed and illustrated.