* Astronomy

Today, June 16, 2011, would have been Robert Burnham Jr.'s 80th birthday.

Burnham was an Arizona astronomer who produced one of the most unusual, and most beloved, set of books of science, his Burnham's Celestial Handbook: An Observer's Guide to the Universe Beyond the Solar System. He began putting it out as a series of loose-leaf notebooks in the mid-1960s. The full, 2,000-page, typewritten, bound three-volume set was later published in 1978 and became an instant classic among people who enjoy looking up at the night sky with small telescopes. The books are something of a small miracle, with mountains of information, inspirational reading, and pure scientific passion.
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