From a review of the best beautiful astronomy & space books, on my Xanga blog AeroGo (see profile for info):
"[A] quite impressive book from the UK is Giles Sparrow's Cosmos: A Field Guide, a very large hardback. Besides the many large illustrations of various sorts, such as the Himalayas from space, a scale of Saturn's rings and moons, and many beautiful planetary nebulae, Cosmos has the best depiction I've seen of the universe as a whole. This is done (pp. 204-5) with a fascinating series of depictions of our own galactic cluster and how it fits into larger clusters and superclusters.
The creators of Cosmos are also to be commended for their good taste in putting one of my favorites, the Sombrero Galaxy, on the cover. In all, this book is an outstanding coffee table book, and about big enough to be a coffee table!"