Rating: 
Summary: Great book for advanced and beginning astronomers
Review: I use this book in my Astronomical observation class and it has helped understand some of the higher mathematical formulas involved in astronomical observing. You can understand it better if you have had some pre-calc/calculus exposure, but for the most part the formulas are well explained.
Rating:
Summary: Great book...but...
Review: I've been through all three editions and spent hundreds of hours with this book. There are a few areas in the calculations where ambiguities lie and at one point I wrote the author c/o cambridge univ. for clarification on these. That was 3 years ago and as of yet no response. where are you Duffet-Smith? Anyway, thank you for all the hours of enjoyment.
Rating: 
Summary: Good for the local system
Review: The book has got an impressive number of formulas and examples and explains a great deal. The tracking of objects within our solar system is covered perfectly but there is one thing missing... There are no formulas for working with objects outside of our solar system. To me that is a disapointment, working with disatnces, tracking and sizes of objects outside our solar system is the only thing it lacks.
Rating:
Summary: A veritable treasure chest of astronomical calculations
Review: The second I started scanning through this book, I was amazed at all the computations which are so well explained. The author clearly explains just enough background for the values being calculated and makes the calculations themselves a snap. Anyone with even a moderate interest in astronomy and a desire to learn the answer to, "How'd they figure that out?" will appreciate this fantastic collection of computations. My only regret is that I'd not found this book years ago.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful for reference!
Review: This book is an excellent resource for quick-and-dirty formulas that are very commonly used. In particular, conversions between time and coordinate systems have been very useful. I use this book for particle astrophysics work -- I currently work for a university lab. My co-workers recommended this book to me, and I'm here recommending it to you. Absolutely essential as a quick reference. My only complaint is that the book covers a few time systems (for example, Julian time), but does not give any useful conversion formulas for them. However, the coverage of coordinate systems is quite extensive.I have not used the later chapters which cover objects in our local system, but I imagine they would be very useful to the amateur astronomer. Unfortunately, the book does not explicitly cover objects outside the local system, but gives you all the formula's you need: simply find the object's right ascension and declination in some online catalog somewhere (there are hundreds of extensive catalogs available for free) and, using the provided formulas, convert into coordinates you can use with your telescope. Overall, *very* useful for the experimentalist or amateur astronomer.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful for reference!
Review: This book is an excellent resource for quick-and-dirty formulas that are very commonly used. In particular, conversions between time and coordinate systems have been very useful. I use this book for particle astrophysics work -- I currently work for a university lab. My co-workers recommended this book to me, and I'm here recommending it to you. Absolutely essential as a quick reference. My only complaint is that the book covers a few time systems (for example, Julian time), but does not give any useful conversion formulas for them. However, the coverage of coordinate systems is quite extensive. I have not used the later chapters which cover objects in our local system, but I imagine they would be very useful to the amateur astronomer. Unfortunately, the book does not explicitly cover objects outside the local system, but gives you all the formula's you need: simply find the object's right ascension and declination in some online catalog somewhere (there are hundreds of extensive catalogs available for free) and, using the provided formulas, convert into coordinates you can use with your telescope. Overall, *very* useful for the experimentalist or amateur astronomer.
Rating:
Summary: Very good book
Review: This is a very good book. You have short explanation and practical application in calculating celestial coordinate transformation,calendar transformation, planets position,eclipse etc. and even precession phenomena. For this latter, elementary knowledge of matrix calculation would be helpful: in any case without going through matrix theory the practicals rules in how to handle them are given.
I strongly advise this book to anybody interested in practical and easy calculation (with high accuracy) of the most important astronomical phenomena.
Rating:
Summary: A excellant starting book on computational astronomy
Review: This is an excellant book for starting of computational astronomy. I read this book when I was being a secondary school student (at 1985). This book can give me clear and fundamental idea and concept required for computational astronomy, eg, time, coordinates. The English and mathematics involved is within the reach of secondary school student.
I am highly recommending this book.
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