A new book just crossed my desk. It’s Shrouds of the Night — Masks of the Milky Way and Our Awesome New View of Galaxies by David L. Block and Kenneth C. Freeman (Springer, 2008). The authors research dark subjects (cosmic dust, dark matter, etc.), and in this book, they present images and data to help readers understand what’s going on within galaxies.
Block is the Director of the Anglo American Cosmic Dust Laboratory in Johannesburg, South Africa. Freeman is a professor of astronomy at the
Australian National University.
Shrouds of the Night takes you on a whirlwind tour of astronomical photographic history right up to present-day digital imaging. You’ll see sketches by Etienne Trouvelot, Otto Boeddicker, and Sir John Herschel. Several images by English astronomer Isaac Roberts exemplify late 19th-century astrophotography.
In the 20th century, American astronomer Edward Emerson Barnard created an atlas of Milky Way regions. The authors chose to reproduce a dozen and a half of his images within Shrouds of the Night. Barnard’s photographs almost single-handedly proved that dark areas within the Milky Way were not holes devoid of stars, but rather clouds of intervening dust.
As the book progresses, the authors pay homage to the past but laud present-day accomplishments. It’s only in the past several decades that technology has allowed us to view the cosmos with “alternate” eyes. Humans started observing the universe through simple telescopes. Now supercomputers, ultra-sensitive detectors, and space telescopes have extended our vision beyond the merely visible.
Present-day astronomical and cultural images make Shrouds of the Night a fascinating read. It carries the size of a coffee-table book, but rather than going at it haphazardly, you’ll want to read it through from start to finish.
