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"Heliophysics" is a recently coined term to encompass the Sun-Heliosphere system. Only one textbook set exists yet; it is a three-book series based on a series of NASA-sponsored summer schools. The related field of Space Weather has a few textbooks -- Mark Moldwin's textbook on space weather is pretty good. The other end of the scale (in the solar corona itself) is still very exciting. Marcus Aschwanden's "Physics of the Solar Corona" is a phenomenal introduction that is surprisingly comprehensive, readable, and clear.

If you're looking for a popular overview of the subject, Sten Odenwald's "The 23rd Cycle" is a nice one to read -- it's rather like what John McPhee (I'm a big fan) would have written if he wrote about space. Carlowicz & Lopez' "Storms from the Sun" is also nice and about the same level.

If you want great detail, I'd go for Moldwin and for Aschwanden. I think that Aschwanden's book is available for free download (at least it used to be) on his website; it's about $100 in hardcover from Amazon.

Are you looking for graduate school recommendations? University of Colorado at Boulder ("CU Boulder") is excellent, as is Montana State University (in Bozeman). Harvard, Stanford, George Mason University, the New Jersey Institute of Technology, the University of Hawaii, and University of Alabama at Huntsville are all terrific choices. Remember that, for graduate school, you're looking for an advisor (not a school, necessarily) that is a good match for you -- you really must go visit each school you consider.

If you want a post-graduate level of understanding, it will be hard to learn the math past calculus that you will need with no instruction. Maybe impossible unless you are very gifted or studious. You'll need to learn more advanced math (taylor expansions, more advanced integration methods not always taught in calc I, multi-variable calculus, ordinary differential equations and linear algebra for starters). A layperson's understanding wouldn't require that much (maybe reading Sagan and Co. would be enough?), but it sounds like you aren't content with that. Maybe it would be good to start reading some journal articles and seeing what you can glean from them (introductions mostly), especially reviews of subjects you find interesting. If those are opaque, check a local university library for textbooks like Introduction to Modern Astrophysics, Padmanabhan's astrophysics I-III, Binney and Tremaine and things like that. There are text books more focused on specific subjects as well, but that's more a matter of personal interest. For me, Lewin and van der Klis is good, and so is Accretion Power in Astrophysics and the "CV Bible." You might notice Cambridge Astrophysics publishes quite a lot of quality astrophysics textbooks.

None of those are going to be legible without the math, though. There's not really anything between the "popular science" and "so you're taking a graduate course in astrophysics..." level texts that I've seen.

Find a used version of Carroll & Ostlie and read it cover to cover. Bits of it might get too in-depth depending on your experience, but then you can branch off and find other resources for those areas that interest you. The NED Knowledgebase is also fun to read and I recommend AstroBites to keep up on current literature until you feel comfortable delving directly into publications. Have fun! :)

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!

An Introduction to Modern Astrophysics is an excellent and easy to read book:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1108422160/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_omrWBbDYB9MN3

It's commonly used for introductory Astrophysics courses. If you don't have a basic understanding of Calculus it won't make much sense so, if you really want to properly understand the subject, first study basic Calculus. A good introductory Calculus book would be this one:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1285740629/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_JdsWBbH1KXPAN.

You're also going to want a basic understanding of Physics so one more for that:

University Physics with Modern Physics (14th Edition)
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0321973615/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_LfsWBbHJ83MT6

Those three books together should give you a basic understanding of Astrophysics and put your feet solidly on the road to further understanding. Read the Calculus book first (at least the first half of it or so) and then the Physics book. Then you'll be ready to dive into Carroll and Ostlie's book!

If you don't want to go quite that deep and you just want a really basic overview of the subject, you might consider finding Hawking's "A Briefer History of Time" or watching the PBS SpaceTime series in YouTube.

Edit: If the Calculus book is still a little unclear, your issue probably lies in Algebra. In that case, read this book before any of the others:

College Algebra (10th Edition)
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0321979478/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_MqsWBbR985C30

Good luck on your journey! Give yourself at least a year or two to get through all of them and don't forget to work the problems!

Oh - download Kerbal Space Program and play it for a while. Trust me on this; you'll develop a second sense of basic orbital mechanics ;)

Good to hear! Might I suggest then An Introduction to Modern Astrophysics. You might be thinking, "well, that's just a general astronomy book", and you'd be right, but it also contains within the entirety of this book. I'd recommend it anyway, as it's the standard undergraduate astronomy text. It touches on pretty much every field in astronomy you can think of, however briefly, so many people keep it as a reference well past their undergraduate careers.

This may be a bit of a challenge to get through if you're at the Calculus 2 level. Some of the math goes quite beyond it, such as differential equations and Fourier analysis, but I'll trust you when you say that you have an aptitude for math.

We're not even sure the constants are constant. It's entirely possible they do change in some complicated relationship on levels too large, too small, too fast or too slow for us to notice 'easily'. I know that dodges your question, but it's one hell of a question and answering it directly would be a marked step forward in our understanding of the universe.

Like chip said, the math is just a 'best fit' solution to the events we observe. If you've got the free time you could crack open this book and try moving things around and see what your new maths describe.

I hadn't even passed algebra when I graduated high school though so if you're in the same boat I was in then this book (specifically the later chapters) might give you a better perspective.

For an astronomy 101 type textbook I would recommend Bennett's The Essential Cosmic Perspective. There are plenty of other 101 level books out there too if you just look around Amazon. If you want a meatier undergrad text book, I would recommend Carroll and Ostlie's Introduction to Modern Astrophysics (also known to many as the Big Orange Book, AKA BOB). BOB covers almost all the basics of astrophysics and has 30 chapter, if I recall correctly, but you'll probably want some grounding in college physics and math before diving too far into it.

Also, it may be worth checking out is Nick Strobel's site, www.astronomynotes.com. It has some good intro-level material.

If you want to read some great books on astrophysics and quantum physics, I recommend the books written by Professors Brian Cox and Jeff Forshaw: Universal and The Quantum Universe

They are brilliant books and deliberately shy away from using any complex mathematics, explaining in detail all of the maths that is used.

I took an intro astro course and they made us use this book. Just an earlier version, sure the last one has some better pictures and maybe explains stuff better/differently, but I picked it up for 5 bucks and it is one of my favorite textbooks ever/so far.

The big bang is not usually simulated if you mean a computers simulation. The reason is you need a code that does high energy quark-gluon plasma calculations inside of a general-relativistic framework that models how through cooling this plasma gives rise to stable atoms.

Though in theory it's possible, writing a code that could model each item correctly would be very difficult.

However, using analytical calculations the basic results of the above scenario is not that bad. That components that you add are metric for general relativity, the spectral index for inflation, the Lagrangian for the high energy particles involved, etc...

If you would like to see how these kinds of calculations are done check out this textbook from a library. See especially the chapters on the "very early universe", "inflation' and gravitational instabilities in GR.

Possibly the best all round book out there for a basic introduction:
http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Modern-Astrophysics-2nd-Edition/dp/0805304029/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1344988735&sr=8-1&keywords=introduction+to+modern+astrophysics

Far too expensive to buy, but if you can find it in a local library it would be invaluable. Everything in it is at a level that you can easily teach yourself stuff you don't know from various online resources.

Cambridge University Press has an excellent series of astronomy books that are written at a undergraduate level. For an amateur as myself they really hit the spot for self-study. Overall easy to read but still quite detailed with a few challanging parts.


An introduction to Galaxies and cosmology by Jones & Lambourne

An introduction to the Sun and stars by Green & Jones

An introduction to the Solar system by McBride & Gilmour

As well as the above book I used Burke & Smith as my introduction to RA, then used Interferometry and Synthesis a lot later on

When I was young and impatient to learn the math underlying GR, I enjoyed this book:

A Brief on Tensor Analysis (Undergraduate Texts in Mathematics) https://www.amazon.com/dp/038794088X

https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Modern-Astrophysics-2nd/dp/0805304029

Here is the book

Then work through this. Should keep you busy for a few years.

An Introduction to Modern Astrophysics (2nd Edition) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0805304029/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_VurBDbZFX95WE

Here