Occasionally a book is published whose influence far outlasts its life in print. Such a book is Leslie C. Peltier’s Starlight Nights: The Adventures of a Star-Gazer. First published in 1965, brought out in softcover shortly after the author’s death in 1980, and then put out of print for nearly a decade before being revived, this collection of reminiscences and observations by one of the 20th century’s most accomplished telescopic observers has become, for many amateur and professional astronomers, a touchstone for their own love of the night sky.
Peltier was five years old when he first glimpsed the Pleiades through the window of his family’s Ohio farmhouse in 1905. That first meeting with the stars grew into a consuming passion that yielded great rewards: 12 comet and 6 nova discoveries and more than 132,000 variable-star observations. In Starlight Nights Peltier tells the story of these achievements in the context of his experiences in rural Ohio, during a time when American farm life was undergoing vast and irrevocable changes.
Deeply connected to the land he grew up on and keenly interested in all aspects of nature, Peltier describes a world that was nurturing and profoundly engaging. He recounts his astronomical adventures with modesty and humor and displays in his writing the strength and clarity of vision he brought to the telescope. Illustrated with Peltier family photographs and introduced by renowned astronomer David H. Levy, this edition of Starlight Nights will draw in those already acquainted with the book as well as a new generation of readers.
Peltier was five years old when he first glimpsed the Pleiades through the window of his family’s Ohio farmhouse in 1905. That first meeting with the stars grew into a consuming passion that yielded great rewards: 12 comet and 6 nova discoveries and more than 132,000 variable-star observations. In Starlight Nights Peltier tells the story of these achievements in the context of his experiences in rural Ohio, during a time when American farm life was undergoing vast and irrevocable changes.
Deeply connected to the land he grew up on and keenly interested in all aspects of nature, Peltier describes a world that was nurturing and profoundly engaging. He recounts his astronomical adventures with modesty and humor and displays in his writing the strength and clarity of vision he brought to the telescope. Illustrated with Peltier family photographs and introduced by renowned astronomer David H. Levy, this edition of Starlight Nights will draw in those already acquainted with the book as well as a new generation of readers.
