Dark Sky Alqueva
A Star Destination
Miguel Claro Centro Atlantico À28.85 HB
Miguel Claro is a professional photographer and the official astrophotographer of the Dark Sky Alqueva Reserve on the boundary of the Beja and Évora districts of southern Portugal. His photographs have appeared in international publications such as National Geographic and the NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day online gallery, as well as being twice shortlisted for the Insight Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition run by the Royal Observatory Greenwich.
In this book, Claro illustrates the stunning landscapes of the Alqueva Park with gorgeous panoramas of the Milky Way arching across the sky, along with beautiful vistas showing the wonder of what is a truly dark sky site. The beginning of the book contains an introduction to the dark sky reserve, highlighting amongst other things how humans have been gazing up in awe from that point for thousands of years, and then makes way for Claro’s impressive, mainly wide field images.
More deep-sky images taken from the site might have provided additional appeal, but this is only a minor point. There is also no numbering on the pages, despite there being an index with illustrations of the images and their details at the back of the book. However, Dark Sky Alqueva is a fantastic collection of astro images and certainly makes a great case for visiting the region to enjoy the stunning views for yourself: I for one have already put it on my list of places to travel to!
Dark Sky Alqueva is currently available via the publisher’s website at www.centroatl.pt. PAUL MONEY is BBC Sky at Night Magazine’s reviews editor
This glossy and beautifully designed book explores all kinds of astronomical concepts, detailing the lives of stars and galaxies as well as alien worlds and comets. It also, as the title suggests, charts the history of world-class observatories and spacecraft with crisp and thoroughly researched infographics. Topics illustrated include the physical, such as lakes and mountains on Solar System planets, and the cosmological, like the makeup of the cosmos in terms of normal matter, mysterious dark matter and the dark energy accelerating the Universe’s expansion.
The authors are scientists who met working on ESA’s Planck satellite mission and they’ve taken part in many projects that promote astronomy to the public. They’ve done a great job; the passages that accompany the infographics in Cosmos are well written and clear.
Some of the visuals highlight little-known facts quite strikingly. One brings home the way the ‘transit’ method – looking for a tiny dimming of stars when planets pass in front of them as viewed from Earth – has flourished over the past few years. That’s largely thanks to NASA’s Kepler mission, which alone has found more than half of the confirmed exoplanets to date.
The graphics might not always appeal to scientific purists, however. They are very detailed and design-led, and sometimes you need to stare at them for some length to figure out what they’re trying to convey. Nonetheless, Cosmos is richly packed with fascinating tidbits of information and makes a colourful, sleek addition to the bookshelves.