Orienting us with an insider's tour of our cosmic home, the Milky Way, William Waller and Paul Hodge then take us on a spectacular journey, inviting us to probe the exquisite structures and motions of giant spiral and elliptical galaxies, to witness the transformative dramas of colliding and erupting galaxies, and to pay our respects to the most powerful galaxies of all the quasars
Includes bibliographical references (pages 275-280) and index
I: A GALAXY PRIMER: Galaxies and the universe -- Form and function -- Galactic anatomy -- The missing mass -- Creation and evolution -- II: NEARBY GALAXIES: The Milky Way -- The Clouds of Magellan -- Dwarfs of the local group -- The nearest giants -- Interacting and starbursting galaxies -- The most powerful galaxies -- III: OUR GALAXIAN UNIVERSE: Gauging the galaxies -- Clusters and superclusters, filaments and voids -- The expanding cosmos -- Scenarios of origin -- The cosmic frontier -- Epilogue