The Starlight Night

David H. Levy is one of the most successful comet discoverers in history. He has discovered 22 comets, nine of them using his own backyard telescopes. With Eugene and Carolyn Shoemaker at the Palomar Observatory in California he discovered Shoemaker-Levy 9, the comet that collided with Jupiter in 1994. That episode produced the most spectacular explosions ever witnessed in the solar system. Levy is currently involved with the Jarnac Comet Survey, which is based at the Jarnac Observatory in Vail, Arizona but which has telescopes planned for locations around the world. Levy is the author or editor of 35 books and other products. He won an Emmy in 1998 as part of the writing team for the Discovery Channel documentary, "Three Minutes to Impact." As the Science Editor for Parade Magazine from 1997 to 2006, he was able to reach more than 80 million readers, almost a quarter of the population of the United States. A contributing editor for Sky and Telescope Magazine, he writes its monthly "Star Trails" column, and his "Nightfall" feature appears in each issue of the Canadian Magazine Sky news. In 2004 he was the Senator John Rhodes Chair in Public Policy and American Institutions at Arizona State University. He has been awarded five honorary doctorates and asteroid 3673 (Levy) was named in his honor. In 2010, David became the first person to discover comets visually, photographically and electronically. Levy has a Ph. D. in English from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is President of the National Sharing the Sky Foundation, an organization intended to inspire new generations to develop an inquiring interest in the sciences or in other words, to reach for the stars.

Preface.- Acknowledgments.- Dedication.- Introduction.- Part I: The Sky in Early Modern English Literature.- Chapter One: The Stella Novae of 1572 and 1604.- Chapter Two: Comets and Meteors: A Rich Harvest from 1573 to 1607.- Chapter Three: These Late Eclipses.- Chapter Four: Of Signs and Seasons.- Chapter Five: The Telescope in Early Modern English Literature.- Part II: The Sky in the Poetry of Tennyson and Hopkins.- Chapter Six: Bridging the Centuries: Astronomical Discoveries Between the Eras of Shakespeare and of Tennyson and Hopkins.- Chapter Seven: Leading Up to the Victorian Age: Moving Toward Hopkins and Tennyson.-Chapter Eight: Arise and Fly.- Chapter Nine: Scarce Worth Discovery.-Chapter Ten: Hopkins and the Starlight Night.- Appendix A: A Selection of References to the Sky in Writings from 1572 to 1620.- Appendix B: A selection of references to the sky in the writings of Hopkins.- Works Cited.