Springer: Telescopes And Techniques

3.0 Seeing Through The Confusion

Plenty of illustrations; History of telescope and types; The nature of light explained.

May be too elementary for some amateurs.

This is one of those middle of the road books that gives just enough history and technical explanations to make it worthwhile to read certain chapters. After a brief history of astronomy, followed by essay on the development of the telescope, the book goes on to explain the different types of scopes, their inventors, and the advantage of each in practical use.

The section that I found most useful dealt with the nature of light and the refractive principles of light as it passes through a lens, or being reflected back from different types of mirrors. Wavelengths, the color spectrum, and the all important "circle of confusion" is explained in detail. What constitutes apochromatic and achromat are also dealt with. Again, this was the most memorable part of the book for me, but there are many other useful theories and phenomena that are discussed.

All in all, this is not a bad reference book, but for some it may be to a little too elementary in nature for the intermediate or advanced amateur. Only you can decide this point.