Astronomy and Astrophysics

For a long time a specialized book on the subject of Astronomy and Astrophysics was in demand. It is hoped that the present book will fulfill this requirement to a large extent.

Astronomy has been categorized by the frequency spectrum like radio optical, X-ray, gamma-ray astronomy etc. At present, a major part of this subject reside under radio and optical which have been covered in this text together with the instrumentation and the physics. The book begins by building the fundamental concepts, theories of creation of the Universe, and moves on to the formation of stars and galaxies, mysterious objects of the Universe, etc. Simultaneously, it elaborates the instrumentation and observational schemes in both radio and optical. Finally, the current and future scopes of radio astronomy, new instrumental developments and supporting instrumentations like radio frequency interference monitoring setup and analysis have been explained in details which are rarely found in other texts.

This volume has been prepared primarily for the post graduate students of different universities, though many of the sections will prove useful for practicing engineers and scientists actively engaged in advanced research. The readers of this book may have a physics or engineering background. To ensure the highest degree of reliability, besides a large number of referenc have consulted freely with many specialists who have provided an up-to-date overview of their areas and have given very valuable infor and ideas. The authors are grateful for their indirect contribution in this text. we

This edition includes around 300 solved problems and many self test questions, ideal for the students of astronomy and astrophysics

Professor Asit Baran Bhattacharya and Dr. Rina Bhattacharya are well known for their versatile publications of many scientific papers and are recognized authors of several textbooks. Besides contributing text, the final editing, majority of the figures and typesetting of this book has been done by Dr. Shubhendu Joardar, whose major works have been for radio astronomy. He is working in an internationally recognized radio observatory (GMRT) of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research for more than fifteen years.