Spider Star
The human colony on the planet Argo has long explored and exploited the technology left behind by an extinct alien race. But then an archaeology team accidentally activates a terrible weapon...
Read More.Praise for Star Dragon
"Seldom does a storytelling talent come along as potent and fully mature as Mike Brotherton. His complex characters take you on a voyage that is both fiercely credible and astonishingly imaginative. This is Science Fiction."
-- David Brin"Star Dragon is terrific fare, offering readers a fusion of hard science and grand adventure."
-- Locus Magazine"Star Dragon is steeped in cosmology, the physics of interstellar travel, exobiology, artificial intelligence, bioscience. Brotherton, author of many scientific articles in refereed journals, has written a dramatic, provocative, utterly convincing hard science sf novel that includes an ironic twist that fans will love."
-- Booklist starred review"Readers hungry for the thought-provoking extrapolation and rigorous technical detail of old-fashioned hard SF are sure to enjoy astronomer Brotherton's first novel."
-- Publishers Weekly"Mike Brotherton, himself a trained astrophysicist, combines the technical acuity and ingenuity of Robert Forward with the ironic, postmodern stance and style of M. John Harrison. In this, his debut novel, those twin talents unite to produce a work that is involving on any number of levels. It's just about all you could ask for in a hardcore SF adventure."
-- Paul di Fillippo, SCI-FI.COM
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Online Astronomy Resources for Writers
August 5th, 2008
I throw a lot of links at the writers attending the Launch Pad Astronomy Workshop for Writers. I usually do it on the fly before a lecture, or embedded within lecture slides. It made sense to pull them out and to put them in one place with a little organization. The idea is that these sites have lasting and specialized value to the writer wanting or needing to include astronomy in their work. I’ll be maintaining and making future edits to the list (attendees are contributing, too), so please feel free to suggest a key site if you think I’ve overlooked one. Here they are for the attendees and the public. Enjoy!
General Astronomy Information and News
Bad Astronomy: Phil Plait’s Blog is an excellent source of basic astronomy information and news in the field.
Centauri Dreams: The News Forum of the Tau Zero Foundation
Space.com: One of several websites I like doing a consistently good job of covering astronomy news. You can sign up for a weekly email summary of stories.
Hard SF Writer’s Bookshelf: My list of some books on my bookshelf that I pull out to share with Launch Pad participants.
Inspiration
Astronomy Picture of the Day: Always really cool and the archive is now vast. Visit every day.
Professional Papers and Resources
astro-ph astronomy journal preprint server features abstracts and new papers just being released.
NASA Extragalactic Database (NED) is handy for detailed information about extragalactic sources.
The National Virtual Observatory (NVO) is a way to put together archival, public astronomical data.
NASA’s Astrophysical Data Server (ADS): Lots of basic information, scanned reference books, and abstract search for journal articles.
Size Scales
Powers of Ten and Cosmic Voyages are two excellent films illustrating the basic size scales of the universe.
3D Star Maps: Really cool resource designed for sf writers.
Cycles in the Sky
Phases of the Moon: One of several nice websites illustrating this basic explanation. This one is better than many.
One page about the seasons that gets the explanation right and addresses some common questions and misconceptions.
In general, it is possible to know what the sky looks like at any given time from any given place on Earth (assuming no clouds), in the past or in the future. Check out Sky & Telescope’s Interactive Sky Chart.
Misconceptions
A Private Universe is a movie showcasing the issue of misconceptions in science with particular focus on the seasons and phases of the moon.
Phil Plait on some common astronomical misconceptions. Another page. Yet another. A lot of misconceptions. Get them right when you write, or intentionally play off them.
Solar System
There are a lot of good websites for solar system information. One is nineplanets.org.
Stars
An interactive Hertzsprung-Russell diagram. Fundamental to how we understand stars.
Star Clock is a program you can run on your PC that shows stellar evolution as a function of time on the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram. I used it when plotting my novel Spider Star.
Galaxies
Awesome page about the Galactic Center and the supermassive black hole that lives there.
Galaxy simulations are cool. Here are some pages I like: Joshua Barnes, John Dubinksi, Chris Mihos:
Galaxy Zoo: A hands-on way of learning about galaxies.
Estimating Distances to Nearby Galaxies with Cepheid Variables.
My introduction to dark matter.
Cosmology
Ned Wright: Ned is a professor of astronomy at UCLA. His website has very nice tutorials with good animations and FAQs about cosmology, as well as a “cosmology calculator” that lets you get quantitative.
Wayne Hu: Another nice set of tutorials, with excellent illustrations. Specialty is here the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation.
My introduction to dark energy.
Exoplanets
exoplanets.org: A nice compilation of information about exoplanets that have been discovered.
How to Design a Solar System. Nice little webpage walking through building an alien solar system, from stars to planets.
Workshop Materials
Horizons by Michael Seeds. This is the textbook I use in introductory astronomy and which I give to Launch Pad participants.
Some Workshop Slides (best viewed with Internet Explorer) based on Horizons about: Size Scales, Light and Astronomical Tools, Stars, exoplanets, Galaxies, Dark Matter, Cosmology
Be patient if the department server is cranky.
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Excellent compilation. I’ll have to steal it for my class.
One possible addition… Nick Strobel’s Astronomy Notes is also a good general, text-bookish reference. It is available online for free at http://www.astronomynotes.com.
Another one for inspiration is http://www.hubblesite.org. (Note: Hubble will be reaching its 100000th orbit on August 11! When 900 orbits you reach, look as good, you will not, mm?)
Writers: Fantastic job today! I was really impressed at how you all collectively assimilated the information from the workshop to figure out the workings of a specific field like quasar absorption lines. All you have to decide, now, is what to do with the tools that’ve given to you. (Ok, couldn’t resist the quote…)
What an utter privilege it has been to be here, quite aside from spending a week in the company of friends and colleagues and simply having a wonderful time! I’ve seldom been this excited, exhilarated, confused, enlightened and inspired all at once.
Thank you, Mike, for putting this together… and for letting me come.
[…] Online Astronomy Resources for Writers gathered by Mike Brotherton. […]
[…] will get an update with new dates and an application deadline (Feb. or March). Anyway, you can go here — my online resources for writers using astronomy — to get my slides on stars among […]
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diagram of solar energy…
An interesting post by a bloger made me ……
[…] Brotherton points out that he’s put together an online astronomy resource list for writers. “If you want to get the same kinds of things I would get, when I’m doing research, […]
Thanks for this brilliant resource. Unfortunatley the Cosmic Voyages video link is down.
I found another on YouTube – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxXf7AJZ73A
Yes, with copyright issues sometimes videos go. Thanks for the updated link. It’s a DVD well worth buying (which I have), although seeing it in an IMAX theater is the best.
[…] few years ago I compiled a list of online astronomy resources for writers following that year’s Launch Pad Astronomy Workshop for Writers. Every year there are new […]