Department of Astronomy
and Steward Observatory

Chris Impey and Buell Jannuzi have announced that Ed Prather is the winner of the ASP's Emmons Award. The ASP press release is quoted below and, along with the capsule summaries of other awardees, can be found HERE.

"The Richard H. Emmons Award for excellence in college astronomy teaching is awarded to Dr. Edward Prather. For the past 20 years Dr. Prather has dedicated himself to conducting research on best practices in teaching general education physics and astronomy at the college level. This work has led to development of a huge number of active learning instructional materials and new tools for assessment of student learning. Ed and his team use their courses at the University of Arizona (UA) as laboratories where they test and validate the effectiveness of these teaching and assessment materials, which they tirelessly disseminate through the Center for Astronomy Education Teaching Excellence workshops held around the country each year. These workshops have reached over 2500 astronomy educators and had a dramatic impact on the teaching of astronomy in the US and worldwide. Dr. Prather also serves as the Education Officer of the American Astronomical Society, and Executive Director of the Center for Astronomy Education. He has over 60 peer-reviewed publications and given hundreds of talks on issues of astronomy and physics teaching and learning. His teaching has been recognized at the university-level where, in 2007, he was awarded the UA Provost’s General Education Teaching Award, and in 2009 the UA College of Science Innovation in Teaching Award. At the national level, he has been awarded the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT) David Halliday and Robert Resnick Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Physics Teaching."

Steward Observatory Astronomer and Development Officer Peter Wehinger passed away on April 27, 2015. During his tenure at the UA (1995 to 2012), Peter helped advance major telescope projects and worked to support astronomy graduate students. Known for his work on comets and quasars, Peter previously held appointments in astronomy at the University of Michigan, Tel-Aviv University, the Royal Greenwich Observatory, the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, and Arizona State University. In 1967 Peter married Susan Wyckoff, herself an astronomer and longtime collaborator.

Peter was inspired to pursue a career in astronomy through his explorations of the sky, using his home-built telescopes, from his backyard in Goshen, New York. While in college he held summer appointments at the U.S. Naval Observatory, the Utrecht Observatory, and the Lowell Observatory. At the University of Michigan he oversaw the funding, design and construction in 1969 of a 1.3-m telescope located near Ann Arbor. Still in use and now named the McGraw-Hill Telescope, this facility has since been relocated to a mountain top site, Kitt Peak, Arizona, adjacent to the telescopes of the Kitt Peak National Observatory, where it is operated by the MDM Observatory Consortium.

While at Steward Observatory, Peter played major roles in establishing the Arizona Astronomy Board, creating the Mt. Lemmon Sky Center, obtaining initial funding for the LSST project, developing a collaboration with the Tokyo Atacama Observatory group, and assisting students in obtaining scholarship funds – to list a few of his accomplishments and contributions.

Peter greatly enjoyed teaching and working with students. He was particularly dedicated and successful in supporting the efforts of graduate students. Aligned with this strong interest of Peter’s and in his memory, a fund has been established to recognize graduate students in the Department of Astronomy with demonstrated records of exceptional or creative work. Sue Wyckoff has asked that those that would like to honor Peter's memory and legacy at Steward Observatory consider making a contribution to the University of Arizona Foundation in support of this fund. The contributed funds will be used to endow "Peter Wehinger Fellowships" in the Department of Astronomy, for the support of the educational and research activities of selected graduate students. Checks should be made payable to "University of Arizona Foundation", with a note on the memo/subject line of, For Wehinger Fund/Department of Astronomy and be sent to:

University of Arizona Foundation
1111 N. Cherry Avenue
P.O. Box 210109
Tucson, AZ 85721-0109

or online at https://uafoundation.org/netcommunity/donations/wehinger-fellowship-fund

Steward Observatory's MagAO team, and collaborators from Leiden University in the Netherlands, have just demonstrated a breakthrough in the quest to image extrasolar planets. Using a technique first proposed by Steward's John Codona, the new coronagraphs in MagAO's Clio infrared camera reach an extreme level of sensitivity to planets very close to their stars. These "Vector Apodizing Phase Plates" fold the light from a star out of the way, allowing the light from the more than 100,000 times fainter planet to shine through. You can read the UA Press Release HERE, and you can read it in Dutch HERE. The photo shows the team at Magellan: from left to right, Matt Kenworthy (a former Steward postdoc), Gilles Otten, and Stewardites Laird Close, Katie Morzinski, and Jared Males.

Tom Beal has written a lengthy article giving an update on LBT progress and on a quick history of the LBT. He quotes from the "LBT2020" draft report. He also discusses progress on the LBTI instrument, an instrument that combines phased light from the two telescopes into a telescope with a 23 meter baseline. You can find his article HERE. (Image courtesy LBTO)