Websites, Books and Other Resources
History of the Telescope
National Parks Service: Historic Observatories
The History of the Telescope, by Henry C. King, 2003
The Telescope: Its History, Technology, and Future, by Geoff Andersen, 2007
Stargazer: The Life and Times of the Telescope, by Fred Watson, 2005
Seeing and Believing: How the Telescope Opened Our Eyes and Minds to the Heavens, by Richard Panek, 1999
Galileo
Nova: Galileo’s Battle for the Heavens
Galileo Galilei: Institute and Museum of the History of Science
Galileo’s New Universe: The Revolution in Our Understanding of the Cosmos, by Stephen P. Maran and Laurence A. Marschall, 2009 (Excerpted in StarDate magazine, May/June 2009)
The Earth Moves: Galileo and the Roman Inquisition, by Dan Hofstadter, 2009
Hubble Space Telescope
The Universe in a Mirror: The Saga of the Hubble Space Telescope and the Visionaries Who Built It, by Robert Zimmerman, 2008
(Excerpted in StarDate magazine, May/June 2009)
Hubble: Imaging Space and Time, by David Devorkin and Robert Smith, 2007
Extrasolar Planets
The Extrasolar Planets Encyclopaedia
California & Carnegie Planets Search
Infinite Worlds: An Illustrated Voyage to Planets beyond Our Sun, by Ray Villard and Lynette R. Cook, 2007
The Quest For Alien Planets: Exploring Worlds Outside The Solar System, by Paul Halpern, 2003
Fritz Benedict's Research
University of Texas Astronomers Confirm Planets Form from Disks Around Stars
McDonald Observatory Planet Search finds first planet orbiting close-in binary star
The Crowded Universe: The Search for Living Planets, by Alan Boss, 2009.
This book covers the history of searches for extrasolar planets and explains plans for future missions. It includes information on Gamma Cephei and some of the work of Fritz Benedict and his colleagues.
Copyright ©2009 McDonald Observatory. This material is based upon work supported by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration under Grant/Contract/Agreement No. HST EO 11210.08 issued through the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under NASA contract NAS5-26555.