Special thanks to Grad Student Alyssa Sokol for putting together our department newsletter!
[PDF] /sites/default/files/Newsletter_Astronomy_update.pdf
News and Events
Wednesday, February 17, 2021
Two FCAD students, Meredith Stone (UMass) and William Balmer (Amherst College), were awarded the Chambliss Honorable Mention at the January 2021 AAS meeting. These awards “.. recognize exemplary research by undergraduate and graduate students who present at one of the poster sessions at the meetings of the AAS."
More information is available at:
Thursday, February 11, 2021
This 3-week summer program is taught by Astronomy Graduate Student Sarah Betti, assisted by other graduate students.
https://www.umass.edu/uww/programs/pre-college/summer/modern-astronomy
Wednesday, February 10, 2021
Prof. Schloerb has been honored by the ARCS Foundation (www.arcsfoundation.org) with an induction to their Alumni Hall of Fame for 2021, for `leadership and vision in the development of the Large Millimeter Telescope Alfonso Serrano, which played a significant role in capturing the first image of a black hole, confirming Einstein's theory of general relativity.
More information can be found at: https://www.arcsfoundation.org/scholars/alumni-hall-fame
Congratulations to Porf. Schloerb!
Tuesday, December 22, 2020
Monday, December 21, 2020
To mark the sun reaching its southerly extreme and the start of astronomical winter, astronomers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst will give live presentations via webinar from the campus’s unique Sunwheel at 7:15 a.m. and 3:45 p.m. on Monday, Dec. 21. The online sessions are free and open to the public.
Tuesday, September 29, 2020
Astronomers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst are marking an especially meaningful event this National Astronomy Week, as a team led by Professor Peter Schloerb recently received a three-year, $5 million grant from the National Science Foundation to provide support for the Large Millimeter Telescope in Mexico and to offer – for the first time – access to it for astronomers from any U.S. institution. For more information: https://www.umass.edu/newsoffice/article/umass-amherst-astronomy-opens-elite
Tuesday, September 22, 2020
Thank you Professor Stephen Schneider, Professor Daniela Calzetti, and Beth Berry for recording our virtual Sunrise gathering!
Tuesday, September 22, 2020
Join UMass Amherst Astronomers on Tuesday, September 22nd 6:30am or 6:15pm for a virtual gathering. To join the webinar broadcast, click here. Please give yourself a few minutes to install Zoom ahead of time. The Autumnal Equinox this year is 9:30 a.m, marking the moment when the sun crosses the celestial equator from north to south as seen from Earth: the beginning of fall in the Northern Hemisphere and Spring in the Southern Hemisphere. UMass Amherst astronomer Stephen Schneider will discuss via a web broadcast the astronomical cause of the sun's changing position during the live presentation. He will also explain the design and history of the Sunwheel, and how it marks the changing positions of the sun and moon. More info: https://www.umass.edu/sunwheel/pages/gatherfall.html
Monday, September 14, 2020
The Astronomy Department at the University of Massachusetts Amherst is saddened to report the passing of retired Full Professor William A. (Bill) Dent. Professor Dent was a key founder of the observational aspect of the Astronomy Program at UMass Amherst. As a graduate student at the University of Michigan Bill had made the amazing discovery that the brightness of what were called quasi-stellar radio sources (quasars) varied with time. This required that the physical sizes of these objects be vastly smaller than had been postulated; many years later we have learned that quasars contain supermassive black holes, often with masses of billions of times the mass of our Sun.
Bill Dent with students in 1969
