Books Books
Category: Astronomy, Bestsellers, Non Fiction
Number of pages: 266
ISBN: 9781781726532
Publication date: December 13, 2021
Price: £14.99
‘I must confess to being completely star-struck by this seminal work’ – The Bay
In Dark Land, Dark Skies, astronomer Martin Griffiths subverts conventional astronomical thought by eschewing the classical naming of constellations and investigating Welsh and Celtic naming. Ancient peoples around the world placed their own myths and legends in the heavens, though these have tended to become lost behind the dominant use of classical cultural stories to name stars. In many cases it is a result of a literary culture displacing an oral culture.
Griffiths has researched past use of Welsh heroes from the Mabinogion in the naming of constellations and his new book is an interesting and provocative combination of a new perspective on Welsh mythology and an astronomy guidebook.
Modeled on the principles of Star-Names and Their Meanings by Richard Hinckley Allen (1899) Dark Land, Dark Skies is an informative guide to star-gazing which will be welcomed by the amateur and professional astronomer alike. The book includes fifty-two star charts covering the entire celestial year to aid identification of the changing constellations and 80 photographs of astronomically interesting objects, and Griffiths’ practical commentary is accompanied by his alternative, Welsh-orientated interpretation of the night sky.
Martin Griffiths
Martin Griffiths is an astronomer and science presenter with Dark Sky Wales, a former senior lecturer in Astronomy at the University of South Wales, and a founder member of NASA’s Astrobiology Science Communication team. He assisted the Brecon Beacon national parks successful campaign to gain International dark sky status and in 2014 became Director of the Brecon Beacon Observatory, a public educational resource at the National Park Visitor Centre. He is the local representative for the BAA campaign for Dark Skies.
Griffiths is a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society; a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy; a member of the British Astronomical Association; the Webb Deep-Sky Society; the Society for Popular Astronomy; The Astronomical Society of the Pacific and the Astronomical league. Astrobiology Society of Britain; The European Science Communication Network; The European Society for the History of Science; The Planetary Society and the British Science Association.
His bestselling book Dark Land, Dark Skies was first published by Seren in 2017.
“I must confess to being completely star-struck by this seminal work; join me in looking to the heavens with new knowledge and a proprietorial interest. Griffiths has shown us that these are our very own skies with our very own names.”
Sarla Langdon, The Bay Magazine
