Professor Miroslav D. Filipović is a scientist, philosopher and philanthropist with over 30 years of experience in astronomy. Since May 2002, Professor Filipović is affiliated with the Western Sydney University (WSU), and has been responsible for the development of Astronomy at WSU. He is Chair of the largest public Observatory in Australia (the WSU’s Penrith Observatory), and has over 200 refereed publications. His research interests centre on supernovae, high-energy astrophysics, planetary nebulae, Milky Way structure and mass extinctions, H II regions, X-ray binaries, active galactic nuclei, deep fields, and stellar content in nearby galaxies. All of this research is closely related to further our understanding of the interactions between galaxies and the processes of stellar formation and star evolution as they affect galaxy evolution. Nicholas F. H. Tothill joined Western Sydney University in 2011, where he is now Senior Lecturer in the School of Science and Director of the Penrith Observatory. He is a member of the Astronomical Society of Australia and the International Astronomical Union. His research centres on the interstellar medium of the Milky Way, but includes topics as diverse as high-redshift galaxy surveys, Antarctic astronomy, and cosmic-ray astrophysics.
The second book, entitled Multimessenger Astronomy in Practice, is a comprehensive textbook which covers all of the individual divisions of astronomy outlined in the first book, plus a couple of extra sections. It has an unusual format, in that most of the chapters are multiauthored, and the total number of authors contributing to the book is 16. This is not entirely surprising, given the scope of the material and the effort required to explain the wide range of subject matter, but it does give the volume an aspect of a conference proceedings, or perhaps a set of review articles. I would see this volume as a handbook for a new graduate student preparing to carry out research in astronomy. Each chapter has an extended list of references to published papers which make sense in that context. John Beckman, The Observatory, February 2023