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The vivid, dramatic images of distant stars and galaxies taken by the Hubble Space Telescope have come to define how we visualize the cosmos. In their immediacy and vibrancy, photographs from the Hubble show what future generations of space travelers might see should they venture beyond our solar system. But their brilliant hues and precise details are not simply products of the telescope’s unprecedented orbital location and technologically advanced optical system. Rather, they result from a series of deliberate decisions made by the astronomers who convert raw data from the Hubble into spectacular pictures by assigning colors, adjusting contrast, and actively composing the images, balancing the desire for an aesthetically pleasing representation with the need for a scientifically valid one.

In Picturing the Cosmos, Elizabeth A. Kessler examines the Hubble’s deep space images, highlighting the remarkable resemblance they bear to nineteenth-century paintings and photographs of the American West and their invocation of the visual language of the sublime. Drawing on art history and the history of science, as well as interviews with astronomers who work on the Hubble Heritage Project, Kessler traces the ways that the sublime, with its inherent tension between reason and imagination, not only forms the appearance of the images, but also operates on other levels. The sublime informs the dual expression—numeric and pictorial—of digital data and underpins the relevance of the frontier for a new era of exploration performed by our instruments rather than our bodies. Through their engagement with the sublime the Hubble images are a complex act of translation that encourages an experience of the universe as simultaneously beyond humanity’s grasp and within the reach of our knowledge.

Strikingly illustrated with full-color images, this book reveals the scientific, aesthetic, and cultural significance of the Hubble pictures, offering a nuanced understanding of how they shape our ideas—and dreams—about the cosmos and our places within it.

Originally published in 1986, this work came out of a conference held in Tucson, Arizona in January 1985, which had the purpose of emphasizing the influence of the Galaxy on the solar system rather than to discuss the Galaxy and the solar system per se. The meeting was the first get-together of the galactic and solar system scientific communities. At the time, the conversations covered new and sometimes controversial topics. This work presented the latest research and stimulated new research and ideas.

Extragalactic radio sources are among the most unusual and spectacular objects in the universe, with sizes in excess of millions of light years, radiated energies over ten times those of normal galaxies, and a unique morphology. They reveal some of the most dramatic physical events ever seen and provide essential clues to the basic evolutionary tracks followed by all galaxies and groups of galaxies.

In The Physics of Extragalactic Radio Sources, David De Young provides a clearly written overview of what is currently known about these objects. A unique feature of the book is De Young's emphasis on the physical processes associated with extragalactic radio sources: their evolution, their environment, and their use as probes to solve other astrophysical problems. He also makes extensive use of the large amount of data now available from observations at x-ray, optical, and radio wavelengths to illustrate his main points.
The Physics of Extragalactic Radio Sources will be a comprehensive introduction to the field for graduate students and a useful summary for astrophysicists.