This is an odd presentation of a history of astronomy. The poetry was often a barrier to truly understanding the topic being presented since it had to be stated in often stilted ways that made it hard to decipher what was being said at times. It was engaging and really fun to read aloud. It did its job of enticing me to read it since that is pretty much the only reason I picked up a book on this topic. It is a good overall view of the contributions, but be prepared to look some stuff up or read another book to really get to the meat of the topics. The tale of Galileo and the Church made me a little less sympathetic to Galileo than I used to be. The Church was not outrageously anti-Galileo as I've heard in other histories. He had to really anger them by writing a book with a twit representing the Church to really get them mad. He was asking for it. :) 
 res ipse loquitor