Research Guides: Astronomy: Get Started

Getting Started Key Resources

If you are new to conducting research:
Consider reviewing the Starting Your Research tutorial to learn the phases and processes of doing research.

To locate or browse books and other works in Astronomy in the Claremont Colleges Library (CCL):

CCL uses the Library of Congress Classification System to organize physical books in the library.
- LC Classification - Astronomy - QB - Honnold, 1st floor (in the cafe area)
- LC Classification - Physics - QC - Honnold, 1st floor (in the cafe area)

Start your Astronomy research with these key resources:

A Dictionary of Astronomy by Ian Ridpath
ISBN: 9780199609055
Publication Date: 2012-02-20
Contains over 4,300 up-to-date entries covering all aspects of astronomy. Includes biographical entries, coverage of observatories and telescopes; and numerous data, tables, and diagrams.
Encyclopedia of Astronomy and Astrophysics by Paul Murdin (Editor)
ISBN: 9780333750889
Publication Date: 2001-01-01
A collaboration between the Institute of Physics Publishing and Macmillan Reference Ltd, this work presents an extensive and comprehensive reference on astronomy and astrophysics. It has 800 contributors, over 2500 entries, is extensively cross-referenced - over 7500 links, and has extensive indexes - up to 12000 index entries. It should be of interest to undergraduates, graduate students, researchers and professionals, as well as to committed amateurs, librarians and lay people.

Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics
Covers the developments in the field of astronomy and astrophysics.
Annual Review of Earth & Planetary Sciences

Astrophysics Data System
From Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, under a NASA grant, contains abstracts, citations, preprints, and archives for materials in physics, astronomy, and related fields.
Allows for searching based on specific astronomical object names, and includes links to the SIMBAD and NASA Extragalactic Database (NED) object name databases for quick access to basic observational data about the objects analyzed in a paper. Developed by NASA and managed by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO).
Language: English
Keywords: ADS
Web of Science
Why search here? Great for discovering scholarly research across a wide array of subject areas, primarily published in high-impact (highly cited) journals in the physical and life sciences, health sciences, social sciences, and arts and humanities.
Content type: Abstracts of scholarly articles, conference proceedings, book chapters
Coverage dates: 1965-present
Easily explore an article bibliography, as well as sources that have cited the article since its publication, via the Citation Network feature. Create a free personal account to keep a comprehensive search history, create search alerts and citation alerts. Additional features related to author and journal profiles are available.
Language: English, Russian, French, German, Chinese, Spanish, Japanese, Portuguese, etc.
Text Mining: Allowed; only through Clarivate APIs
Keywords: Social Science Citation Index Science Citation Index Arts and Humanities Citation Index Conference Proceedings Citation Index Emerging Sources Citation Index WoS Knowledge

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