ObservationalCosmology

Other useful sources

The other textbooks are particularly good:

• An Introduction to Modern Cosmology  (2ndEdition) by A. Liddle (Wiley, 2003)  (The few errors are listed  on the book's website .)
• Cosmology (4th Edition) by M. Rowan-Robinson (OUP, 2004).  The 3rd edition is not very different.

Other useful sources are:

•   Modern Cosmological Observations & Problems by Greg Bothun (Taylor & Francis, 1998)   (8 copies in the library)
  This book is available online here. It is interesting, well-referenced, very much orientated towards observations, and has a lot of interesting detail. However, much of this detail is beyond what is needed for the present course. The book's organisation and order are rather eccentric, and it does not provide a good logical treatment of the basics of cosmology. It also contains many errors, some of which are listed on the accompanying web-site.
• Introduction to Cosmology by M. Roos
• Principles of Cosmology and Gravitation by M.V.Berry
• Introduction to Cosmology by  Barbara Ryden

If you need something more advanced, try:

• Cosmological Physics by J.A.Peacock
• Cosmology by P.Coles & F.Lucchin

Students with little astrophysics background will need to do some background reading to fill gaps in their astronomical knowledge. You will need to familiarise yourself with the basic tools of astronomers, such as angular measurements;  coordinate systems; magnitudes, fluxes and luminosities; optical filter bands (UBV etc.) and colours; stellar classification (OBAFG...), and velocity measurements using redshifts.
 Good sources are first year astronomy texts, such as:

• Universe by W.J.Kaufmann (or newer edition by Kaufmann & Freedman)
• Astronomy: The Evolving Universe by M.Zeilik & S.A.Gregory