George Alcock, an English retired schoolmaster, is acknowledged by professionals worldwide as one of the most successful amateur astronomers of the century. Between 1931 and 1951 he made a significant contribution to the understanding of meteors; in 1959 he found the first comet since 1894 to be discovered from Britain; and in 1967 he discovered his first nova. Now 84, he hopes to increase his remarkable tally of major visual discoveries: five comets and five novae (the most recent Nova Herculis 1991).
A Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society and the Royal Geographical Society, he is also a meteorologist and a keen naturalist, ornithologist and geologist. In 1950 he discovered a section of Roman road. Included in this biography are many of his fine sketches of comets, planets, cloud formations, flora and fauna -- and the 1944 eruption of Vesuvius, which he witnessed during his wartime RAF service.
He is a medallist of the British Astronomical Society, the Royal Astronomical Society, the Astronomical Society of the Pacific and the American Association of Variable Star Observers. He was awarded an MBE in 1979 and in 1992 he became a member of the New York Academy of Sciences.
The foreword is written by Dr. Brian G. Marsden, Director of the International Astronomical Union's (IAU) Minor Planet Center and Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams, based at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass. A graduate of the Universities of Oxford and Yale, Dr. Marsden is a prominent member of the IAU and a leading expert on the orbits of comets and minor planets.
Under an English Heaven was launched at the London Astronomy Show 96 (1996 Nov. 2nd to 3rd).
To say [the book] is compulsive reading would be a gross understatement.
The potential purchaser should not ask `can I afford it' but `where can I get it'.
Read the full review.
Alcock has also been honoured with his own minor planet. The current position of Alcock's minor planet can be found using the IAU Minor Planet Center's Minor Planet Ephemeris Service.
Under An English Heaven is a limited edition signed by George Alcock.
Number of pages: 228 on cream paper
Trim page size: 230mm x 160mm
Eight pages in full colour and 40 monochrome illustrations
Bound in dark-blue linen, blocked in two colours and housed in a linen slip-case
Price: $45 + p&p (U.S.A.), £29.95 + p&p (rest of world)
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