Reddit mentions of Foundations of Astrophysics

There are several detection methods when it comes to detecting extra-solar planets. These methods include:

Pulsar timings: Periodic variations in the pulse arrival time due to Earth-mass or smaller planets orbiting a pulsar. Angular momentum comes into play here.

Doppler Spectroscopy: A doppler shift, (In the case of light, objects moving towards you are blueshifted, and away from you are redshifted) in the wavelength of light recieved from a planet due to it moving towards or away from us.

Astrometric variations: A precise measurement of stellar position to find the wobble due to a planet orbiting a star. Though we say that planets orbit stars, they really orbit centers of mass, and the star orbits this same center of mass. For stars with very large masses compared to their orbiting planets this center of mass will fall within the radius of the star.

Transit photometry: Seeing a planet passing in front of its star causing the star to dimm slightly and periodically. This requires the planet to orbit in our line of sight.

Microlensing: Much like the gravitational lensing we see from having galaxies between us and a more distant target, planets also cause lensing by moving in front of the star, this effect is extremely small as you might imagine, thus the name.

If I understand your question correctly it would be like looking from above the plane in which the planets orbit, so the best method for detecting planets would be astrometric variations. We can see the star orbiting a common center of mass with the planet, which we wouldn't see if the star did not have companions orbiting it.

First time trying to answer a question here, hopefully I didn't mess it up!
These methods were taking from my astrophysics notes, these notes are without their own sources unfortunately (I'm an astrophysics student).

Edit: A relavent source (click the different methods to get a swanky gif of it in action!) 5 Ways to Find a Planet.

The textbook we use in astrophysics is Foundations of Astrophysics (Ryden & Peterson).

This question gets asked all the time on this sub. I did a search for the term books and compiled this list from the dozens of previous answers:

How to Read the Solar System: A Guide to the Stars and Planets by Christ North and Paul Abel.


A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson.


A Universe from Nothing: Why There is Something Rather than Nothing by Lawrence Krauss.


Cosmos by Carl Sagan.

Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space by Carl Sagan.


Foundations of Astrophysics by Barbara Ryden and Bradley Peterson.


Final Countdown: NASA and the End of the Space Shuttle Program by Pat Duggins.


An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth: What Going to Space Taught Me About Ingenuity, Determination, and Being Prepared for Anything by Chris Hadfield.


You Are Here: Around the World in 92 Minutes: Photographs from the International Space Station by Chris Hadfield.


Space Shuttle: The History of Developing the Space Transportation System by Dennis Jenkins.


Wings in Orbit: Scientific and Engineering Legacies of the Space Shuttle, 1971-2010 by Chapline, Hale, Lane, and Lula.


No Downlink: A Dramatic Narrative About the Challenger Accident and Our Time by Claus Jensen.


Voices from the Moon: Apollo Astronauts Describe Their Lunar Experiences by Andrew Chaikin.


A Man on the Moon: The Voyages of the Apollo Astronauts by Andrew Chaikin.


Breaking the Chains of Gravity: The Story of Spaceflight before NASA by Amy Teitel.


Moon Lander: How We Developed the Apollo Lunar Module by Thomas Kelly.


The Scientific Exploration of Venus by Fredric Taylor.


The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe.


Into the Black: The Extraordinary Untold Story of the First Flight of the Space Shuttle Columbia and the Astronauts Who Flew Her by Rowland White and Richard Truly.


An Introduction to Modern Astrophysics by Bradley Carroll and Dale Ostlie.


Rockets, Missiles, and Men in Space by Willy Ley.


Ignition!: An Informal History of Liquid Rocket Propellants by John Clark.


A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking.


Russia in Space by Anatoly Zak.


Rain Of Iron And Ice: The Very Real Threat Of Comet And Asteroid Bombardment by John Lewis.


Mining the Sky: Untold Riches From The Asteroids, Comets, And Planets by John Lewis.


Asteroid Mining: Wealth for the New Space Economy by John Lewis.


Coming of Age in the Milky Way by Timothy Ferris.


The Whole Shebang: A State of the Universe Report by Timothy Ferris.


Death by Black Hole: And Other Cosmic Quandries by Neil deGrasse Tyson.


Origins: Fourteen Billion Years of Cosmic Evolution by Neil deGrasse Tyson.


Rocket Men: The Epic Story of the First Men on the Moon by Craig Nelson.


The Martian by Andy Weir.


Packing for Mars:The Curious Science of Life in the Void by Mary Roach.


The Overview Effect: Space Exploration and Human Evolution by Frank White.


Gravitation by Misner, Thorne, and Wheeler.


The Science of Interstellar by Kip Thorne.


Entering Space: An Astronaut’s Oddyssey by Joseph Allen.


International Reference Guide to Space Launch Systems by Hopkins, Hopkins, and Isakowitz.


The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality by Brian Greene.


How the Universe Got Its Spots: Diary of a Finite Time in a Finite Space by Janna Levin.


This New Ocean: The Story of the First Space Age by William Burrows.


The Last Man on the Moon by Eugene Cernan.


Failure is Not an Option: Mission Control from Mercury to Apollo 13 and Beyond by Eugene Cernan.


Apollo 13 by Jim Lovell and Jeffrey Kluger.


The end

The textbooks recommended in the intro Astronomy class here are An Introduction to Modern Astrophysics by Carroll & Ostlie and Foundations of Astrophysics. I've never read through either, but apparently the first one is much more detailed.

The older edition of Modern Astrophysics is significantly cheaper and will fit your purposes just as well: 1st Edition Carroll

I'm working on my BS in Physics with my Astronomy minor done and here's my 2 cents. If you love the hobby enough, the math and physics shouldn't bother you. On the same point, after intro courses in both Physics and Astronomy, it gets very math-heavy. If you have the determination and love for the subject, it's very doable :)

My Astronomy textbook that I used is Foundations of Astrophysics.

Check it out and see if you can find a site that previews the book. Good luck!

Looking on their website it seems as if they do not let outside people borrow from their library, sorry :(.

I know many libraries have "partnerships" for the lack of a better word, where if you try to borrow a book from the library, and they don't have it, they will request it from somewhere else they are partnered with and get it for you.

Some ideas of books:

For my undergraduate astrophysics class I used - Foundations of Astrophysics by Ryden and Peterson, ISBN13: 978-0-321-59558-4

I have also used (more advanced, graduate level) - An Introduction to Modern Astrophysics by Carroll and Ostlie, ISBN13: 978-0-805-30402-2

There are plenty of other undergraduate text books for astrophysics, but those are the only two I have experience with.

Some other books that may be just fun reads and aren't text books:

A Brief History of Time - Hawking

QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter - Feynman

Random popular science books:

Parallel Worlds - Kaku (or anything else by him Michio Kaku)

Cosmos - Sagan

Dark Cosmos - Hooper

or anything by Green, Krauss, Tyson, etc.

Videos to watch:

I would also suggest, if you have an hour to burn, watching this video by Lawrence Krauss. I watched it early on in my physics career and loved it, check it out:

Lawrence Krauss - A Universe From Nothing

Also this video is some what related:

Sean Carroll - Origin of the Universe and the Arrow of Time

Hope you enjoy!

Edit: Formatting.

The best bang for your buck, in my opinion, is Abell's Exploration of the Universe. It's dirt cheap (comparatively), and it contains a lot of the basic math you should know. The major concern is that this book is old, and some of its information is very well out of date. However, the basics of the planets and stars haven't changed significantly in, oh, 50 years or so, so this book is a solid introduction.

If you want something a little more up-to-date (and a little pricier), you might want to check out The Cosmic Perspective. My main complaint is that this book has very little mathematical rigor, but its explanations of concepts are rock solid.

If you really want to shoot for the moon (heh), you could pick up copies of Foundations of Astrophysics or An Introduction to Modern Astrophysics. These are NOT 100-level texts, but these two (especially the second) are must-reads in the world of astronomy textbooks.