<p>I really want to take Astronomy classes, but I cannot. It won't give me anything towards my degree (I only need one physical science, and I am required to take Physics for my major, so that is how the requirement is to be filled), and my adviser says that I have zero room for classes that don't further my degree, since I'm in a high unit major. I really want to learn some basic Astronomy, though, and the school (De Anza College) does allow students to purchase tickets to the awesome huge planetarium. So, if I got a good textbook and bought some tickets, I could still learn a lot. Anyone know what book I should buy?</p>
<p>Although I went to medical school my undergraduate degree was in Astronomy. There are two books that I had as textbooks that I think would be good for independent study, particularly for people with good Physics backgrounds. One is “The Physical Universe” by Frank Shu which is by far one of the best written textbooks in any subject I have ever read. It is an old book written in the 1980s so it contains a lot of outdated information, particularly in the area of Cosmology. Still, it is a great book for learning the basics and is full of well designed problems that range in difficulty from high school Algebra to Graduate level Astrophysics. I do not understand why Dr. Shu never wrote updated editions of this classic.</p>
<p>Another one I used was “Fundamental Astronomy” by Karttunen et all, first edition was also in the 1980s but there was a 5th edition published in 2007 which is much more up to date than the Shu book. It contains many worked example problems and problem sets at the end of each chapter with answers in the back of the book.</p>
<p>They’re more expensive than a textbook, but a few years ago I bought a fantastic set of astronomy lectures from The Great Courses, taught by Cal’s Alex Filippenko. There were a lot of lectures and I watched each one three or four times. Not because they were difficult or confusing, but because there was a lot of information and I was finding that if I only watched each lecture once or twice, I’d miss a lot. You also get a booklet with outline notes, which are valuable.</p>
<p>They’ve got a sale on his astronomy course going on right now.</p>
<p>[Understanding</a> the Universe: An Introduction to Astronomy, 2nd Edition](<a href=“The Great Courses”>The Great Courses)</p>