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Editorial Review Book Description
Photographs of outer space--produced by earthbound and space telescopes and planet-roving satellites--have captivated a vast audience. And nowhere has this audience found more enthralling views than on Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD), a website so popular that it draws well over one million hits every week. The Universe: 365 Days presents in unprecedented clarity 365 spectacular images culled from the thousands that have been featured on the site, which has been hailed as one of the best science sites by both Scientific American and Popular Science magazines.Following the enormously successful format of Abrams' Earth From Above: 365 Days, The Universe: 365 Days has been crafted by the two astrophysicists who in 1995, in collaboration with NASA, created and continue to maintain the APOD website. Accompanying each stunning image is a short explanatory text that greatly expands the reader's appreciation of the wonders of the cosmos. ... Read more Customer Reviews (11) 
Not so hot.
I am a HUGE fan of Earth From Above, I think it's by far one of the best photo books out there. This book pales in comparison to the caliber of the photography in Earth. Very disappointing. There a couple of amazing shots, but that's about it. I wouldn't bother, unless you're super into astronomy.
Universe
We have purchased several of these books - one for ourselves and the others as gifts.It is awesome.
AWESOME!
This is a truly awesome and inspiring book. The gorgeous photographs and the informative text will challenge your imagination to the breaking point! Best of all, this book will strengthen your faith in our awesome Creator God, and in the Bible - His word of truth to all mankind.
Consider the following Bible verses, written hundreds to thousands of years before the invention of the first telescope:
"The host of heaven cannot be numbered." Jeremiah 33:22
"As many as the stars of the sky in multitude - innumerable as the sand which is by the seashore." Hebrews 11:12
"Lift up your eyes on high, and see who has created these things, Who brings out their host by number; He calls them all by name, by the greatness of His might and the strength of His power; not one is missing." Isaiah 40:26
"When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have made, what is man that You are mindful of him?" Psalm 8:3,4
"[God] hangs the earth on nothing." Job 26:7
"It is [God] who sits above the circle of the earth." Isaiah 40:22
"There is one glory of the sun, another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for one star differs from another star in glory." 1 Corinthians 15:41
"Can you bind the cluster of the Pleiades? [Can you] loose the belt of Orion?" Job 38:31
"Can you guide Arcturus?" Job 38:32
"God ..... has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds." Hebrews 1:1,2
"For thus says the Lord, who created the heavens, who is God, who formed the earth and made it ..... who did not create it in vain, who formed it to be inhabited." Isaiah 45:18
"You alone are the Lord; You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host ..... the host of heaven worships You." Nehemiah 9:6
"The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows His handiwork. Day unto day utters speech, and night unto night reveals knowledge. There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard. Their line has gone out through all the earth, and there words to the end of the world." Psalm 19:1-4
"Be still, and know that I am God." Psalm 46:10
Disappointing to say the least
I wanted to buy this book for a long time and waited until the price was right. When I bought it, I couldn't check inside because it was wrapped in plastic. So when I brought it home and opened it, I was very disappointed with the photos. I was expecting super high quality photos and instead found tons of OLD photos of galaxies and stars that have been available in other books (which I have or have read) since the 1960s and 1970s. Or worse, photos seemingly taken directly from websites, with web quality, ie: not very good.
They had to fill this book with 365 photos and I say 250 of them are not worth spending any amount of money on, because they're free on the internet or the quality is terrible or simply because they've been available in other (and better) books for several decades now and the writer didn't bother getting updated versions of those old photos. As an example, on Nov. 27, there's the famous "Earth at Night" photo. I already have the photo as a desktop image (it's widely available on the net) and it looks better on my computer than in the book, which is murky and lacks detail.
The Universe: 365 Days is just not what I expected. The concept is actually cool but the execution is very uneven and at times poor. I would have left it at the bookstore if I initially had the chance to look inside it before purchasing it.
beautiful photography
There is a website called "Astronomy Picture of the Day".The website is exactly what it claims to be.Every day the website posts a new picture related to astronomy with a description of that picture written by a professional astronomer.With the first archived photo on that website from June 16, 1995, the editors of "The Universe: 365 Days" had nearly 8 years of photographs to draw on when this volume was published in May 2003.This book can be used like a calendar because that is how this book is laid out: every day of the year has an astronomy photograph, with a description of each picture. As someone who knows very little about the universe, or astronomy, even with the descriptions next to the pictures I still wasn't always sure what I was looking at and how one picture was truly different from another.I understand that they look different and that they are pictures of very different parts of the universe, but the details are far beyond my comprehension.What is not beyond my comprehension is the fact that these are stunningly beautiful pictures.Even simple pictures that we may have seen many times before, like a picture of our planet from space, is striking and beautiful.Others are of star clusters and galaxies that are so far away and so alien that it boggles the mind to know that there are places like this out there and we really know nothing about what it would be like to travel there. This book can be read as a calendar, where you flip the page each day and see what new photograph is waiting.It can be read like that, but I couldn't imagine only looking at one of these pictures a day.After seeing one picture, I just had to turn the page to see what wonder was waiting for me, and almost without exception, there was a wonder on every page.Beautiful space photography (though some are on Earth, and others looking out from Earth).If that sounds interesting, this collection is probably for you. -Joe Sherry
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an atlas, not a text