Research Resources for Astronomy

Wellesley College Library catalog
In addition to books, you will also find journals, videos, and more.

Interlibrary Loan (ILL)
Wellesley College faculty, students, and staff may use Interlibrary Loan and or other Document Delivery services to
borrow or obtain copies of materials not found in Wellesley's collection.

Other nearby library catalogs
Links to other nearby libraries.

WorldCat ^WC
OCLC catalog of books and other materials in libraries worldwide.

National Academies Press
At the National Academy Press web site, you can search over 3,000 full-text books online for specific subject terms, in order to locate relevant chapters or book titles. Coverage includes subjects like physical sciences, materials science/engineering, environmental issues, and more.

Floor Map of Science Library

Find background information

AccessScience ^WC
Access to all the articles, fully illustrated, from the latest edition of the McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science & Technology, Research Updates from the McGraw-Hill Yearbooks, thousands of illustrations, and the latest Science News® headlines, biographies, 110,000+ definitions from The McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific & Technical Terms, and more.

Eric Weisstein's World of Astronomy offers hundreds of definitions.

The Extrasolar Planets Encyclopedia

Encyclopedia of Astronomy and Astrophysics Astronomy Library q QB14 .E534 2001

Oxford Reference Online ^WC
Oxford Reference Online contains over 100 dictionary, language reference, and subject reference works published by Oxford University Press.

Find articles and essays

The following databases provide either full-text articles or citations (information about when and where the article was published).
Once you have a citation for an article, use the Find It! @ Wellesley link from each citation to search one or more electronic journal sources through the Wellesley College Library Catalog. Use the name of the journal as the title. If Wellesley does not own the article, you can request it via Interlibrary Loan (ILL).

^WC = Wellesley College users only.

Academic Search Premier
The world’s largest academic multi-disciplinary database, Academic Search Premier provides full text for nearly 4,650 serials, including full text for more than 3,600 peer-reviewed titles.

Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
The Astrophysics Data System (ADS) is a NASA-funded project which maintains three bibliographic databases containing more than 4.8 million records: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Physics, and ArXiv e-prints.

Google Scholar
Use Google Scholar to find scholarly literature available across the web, including peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, preprints, abstracts and technical reports from all broad areas of research.

Science Direct ^WC
Science Direct has full text articles from astronomy journals published by Elsevier and related publishers. Access to articles with green icons only. 1995+

STScI STEPsheet
Preprints from the Space Telescope Science Institute.

Web of Science ^WC
Web of Science at Wellesley consists of the Science Citation Index, Social Sciences Citation Index, and Humanities Citation Index. Web of Science is very useful in performing interdisciplinary subject searches and citation searches.

Other databases may be useful for you, depending on your specific topic and approach. The Databases A-Z page lists all of the electronic resources and what subjects and time span they cover.

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Tracing citations

• Use the Science Citation Index Expanded (1900-present) in Web of Science ^WC.

Internet links

American Astronomical Society - Contains information about the society and a job register.

Annual Reports of Observatories - Alphabetical list of those observatories that are known to publish Annual Reports.

The Astronomy Center - AstronomyCenter.org is a collection of digital resources for teachers and students brought to you by the American Astronomical Society, the American Association of Physics Teachers, and the NSF-NSDL.

Astronomy Now - Astronomy portal which includes breaking news.

Astronomy Online

European Southern Observatory

Great Debates in Astronomy

Great Images in NASA (GRIN)

Hubble Heritage

IDL Tutorial - Learn the basics of IDL for Astronomers.

International Astronomical Union

JPL NEO orbits - Visualize any asteroid or comet in orbit.

The NASA/TPAC Extragalactic Database

The Nine Planets - provides a tour of the solar system with pictures, sounds, and text

SLA/PAM resources in Astronomy

Sky and Telescope - Astronomy portal with select top stories and more.

SkyView - The Internet's Virtual Telescope

Spaceref.com - Hosted by Discovery.com

Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) - ST ScI's Webcasts, with topics ranging from astronomy to technology to computer science. The talks include colloquia and popular talks, as well as locally-held meetings and symposia.

Stanford Solar Center

STARNET (NATO) Science, Technology, and Research Network

Students for the Exploration and Development of Space (SEDS) - An independent, student-based organization which promotes the exploration and development of space.

University of Denver/ Best Planetary and Solar Astronomy Websites

Welcome to the Planets contains images of NASA's planetary exploration program.

Women in Astronomy  - Produced by the American Astronomical Society's Committee on the Status of Women, lists the names, professional affiliations, scientific interests, talk titles and contact information for women in astronomy and astrophysics.

Take some time to have fun with Phil Plait's Bad Astronomy site.

Contact the departmental Library liaison

Contact: Neil Nero, library research liaison to Astronomy 

Contact: Deborah Lenares, library collections liaison to Astronomy

Go to related Wellesley College academic departments

Astronomy Department

Physics Department

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