David Malin

This book brings together the finest collection available of star clusters, galaxies, nebulae and other such spectacular phenomena caught on film. Each beautiful image, made from a series of delicate yet rich platinum prints, is accompanied by a clear and engaging caption. Malin's short texts (approximately 100 words) describe the depicted phenomena and some of the mythology surrounding them. The book is divided into nine sections, using the constellations as a framework to identify the positions of the images in the sky. Each section is introduced by a short text describing the featured constellations and a celestial map. In his introductory essay, Malin outlines the history and importance of photographing the night sky, describing how very long exposures taken with a telescope reveal stars and distant galaxies too faint to be seen by the eye. By studying galaxies, we learn about our origins and perhaps our destiny and, the origins of the ingredients of life and the destinies of stars like the Sun and the planets associated with them. Much of our current knowledge on these subjects was gleaned from black and white photographs like those in this book, which were originally taken for scientific purposes. Using the world's most sophisticated telescopes and his own revolutionary techniques, Malin brings us awe-inspiring images of distant worlds and amazing phenomena. He is a pioneer of space photography and has invented new ways of capturing the unseen universe on photographic plates, leading to the discovery of two new types of galaxies. His photographs capture light that has travelled immense distances, sometimes thousands of light years, to reach us.

Through the lens of a microscope or the shaft of a telescope exists a universe of boundless life and beauty, that is entirely invisible to the naked eye. Atoms, ice crystals, grains of pollen, snowflakes, butterfly wings, cloud formations, searing comets, and showers of stars are born, live and die. The unprecedented scope of "Heaven &, Earth" offers an awe-inspiring voyage of discovery through this infinite world that is science - from the smallest particles on the earth's surface to tiny dots in galaxies that are billions of light years away. Revealing the extensive range of matter contained in the cosmos, this book navigates a fascinating trajectory through an unexplored world, to celebrate the immeasurable beauty and countless mysteries of planet earth and the universe. It charts - chapter by chapter - intricate landscapes of increasing scale and distance, captured by microscope, x-ray, satellite and telescope. Each magnificent photograph is accompanied by an extended caption that explains it in detail, offering a dose of scientific information that enables us to associate with it on a human scale. This volume presents a unique and richly illustrated insight into the momentous relation between aesthetics and nature, in the light of nature's magnitude and its complexity of life. The result is the ultimate fusion of art and science, through a sequence of images that are as subtle as they are stupendous.