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Gary Alan Wegner (born Seattle, Washington on December 26, 1944) is an American astronomer, the endowed Leede '49 Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Dartmouth College, and recipient of the Alexander Von Humboldt Prize. Wegner was also a member of a famous group of seven astronomers called the Seven Samurai who, in the 1980s, discovered the location of the Great Attractor. He has co-authored and authored over 320 articles in astronomy and astrophysics. [1] [2] [3] [4]
Gary Wegner grew up in Washington State and was interested and involved in Astronomy from an early age. His first published work (as a teenager) comprised drawings of the surface of the planet Mercury. [5] [6] [7] As a youth, he constructed a large telescope in his backyard, and received a Westinghouse Science Talent Search award [8] when he was in high school, earning him a trip to Washington D.C. [9]
Gary Wegner received his BSc degree from the University of Arizona in 1967, and his PhD degree in Astronomy from the University of Washington in 1971. He is the Margaret Anne and Edward Leede '49 Distinguished Professor at Dartmouth and a recipient of the prestigious Alexander Von Humboldt Prize from the Humboldt Foundation in Germany where he spent time at the Ruhr University. He has also worked at Mount Stromlo Observatory in the Australian Capital Territory, Oxford University, the South African Astronomical Observatory, the University of Delaware, Pennsylvania State University, Kitt Peak National Observatory, and he was director of MDM Observatory from 1991-99. His current work focuses on galaxies and he is also well known for his study of white dwarf stars. [2]
Gary Wegner was a member of a group of astronomers known as the "Seven Samurai" which postulated the existence of the Great Attractor, a huge, diffuse region of material around 250 million light-years away that results in the observed motion of our local galaxies. [2] [10]
He has been married to Cynthia Kay Wegner since 1966 and has five children and two grandchildren. [1] He is the father of Josef Wegner, professor of Egyptology at the University of Pennsylvania and discoverer of the tomb of pharaoh Woseribre Senebkay.
Wegner has published over 320 peer-reviewed papers in astronomy. [4] The 10 with the most citations are :
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In astronomy, the Tully–Fisher relation (TFR) is an empirical relationship between the mass or intrinsic luminosity of a spiral galaxy and its asymptotic rotation velocity or emission line width. It was first published in 1977 by astronomers R. Brent Tully and J. Richard Fisher. The luminosity is calculated by multiplying the galaxy's apparent brightness by , where is its distance from us, and the spectral-line width is measured using long-slit spectroscopy.
Messier 81 (also known as NGC 3031 or Bode's Galaxy) is a grand design spiral galaxy about 12 million light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major. It has a D25 isophotal diameter of 29.44 kiloparsecs (96,000 light-years). Because of its relative proximity to the Milky Way galaxy, large size, and active galactic nucleus (which harbors a 70 million M☉ supermassive black hole), Messier 81 has been studied extensively by professional astronomers. The galaxy's large size and relatively high brightness also makes it a popular target for amateur astronomers. In late February 2022, astronomers reported that M81 may be the source of FRB 20200120E, a repeating fast radio burst.
A dark galaxy is a hypothesized galaxy with no, or very few, stars. They received their name because they have no visible stars, but may be detectable if they contain significant amounts of gas. Astronomers have long theorized the existence of dark galaxies, but there are no confirmed examples to date. Dark galaxies are distinct from intergalactic gas clouds caused by galactic tidal interactions, since these gas clouds do not contain dark matter, so they do not technically qualify as galaxies. Distinguishing between intergalactic gas clouds and galaxies is difficult; most candidate dark galaxies turn out to be tidal gas clouds. The best candidate dark galaxies to date include HI1225+01, AGC229385, and numerous gas clouds detected in studies of quasars.
NGC 4309 is a lenticular galaxy located about 55 million light-years away in the constellation Virgo. The galaxy was discovered by astronomer Christian Peters in 1881 and is a member of the Virgo Cluster.
In cosmology, galaxy filaments are the largest known structures in the universe, consisting of walls of gravitationally bound galaxy superclusters. These massive, thread-like formations can reach 80 megaparsecs h−1 and form the boundaries between large voids.
Martha Patricia Haynes is an American astronomer who specializes in radio astronomy and extragalactic astronomy. She is the Distinguished Professor of Arts and Sciences in Astronomy at Cornell University. She has been on a number of high-level committees within the US and International Astronomical Community, including Advisory Committee for the Division of Engineering and Physical Sciences of the National Academies (2003–2008) and Astronomy and Astrophysics Decadal Review. She was a Vice-President of the Executive Committee of the International Astronomical Union from 2006–2012, and was on the Board of Trustees of Associated Universities Inc from 1994 until 2016, serving two terms as Board Chair and one year as Interim President.
In astronomy, the velocity dispersion (σ) is the statistical dispersion of velocities about the mean velocity for a group of astronomical objects, such as an open cluster, globular cluster, galaxy, galaxy cluster, or supercluster. By measuring the radial velocities of the group's members through astronomical spectroscopy, the velocity dispersion of that group can be estimated and used to derive the group's mass from the virial theorem. Radial velocity is found by measuring the Doppler width of spectral lines of a collection of objects; the more radial velocities one measures, the more accurately one knows their dispersion. A central velocity dispersion refers to the σ of the interior regions of an extended object, such as a galaxy or cluster.
Roger Llewelyn Davies is a British astronomer and cosmologist, one of the so-called Seven Samurai collaboration who discovered an apparent concentration of mass in the Universe called the Great Attractor. He is the Philip Wetton Professor of Astrophysics at Oxford University. His research interests centre on cosmology and how galaxies form and evolve. He has a longstanding interest in astronomical instruments and telescopes and developed the scientific case for the UK's involvement in the 8m Gemini telescopes project. He has pioneered the use of a new class of astronomical spectrograph to measure the masses and ages of galaxies, as well as search for black holes in their nuclei. He is the founding Director of the Oxford Centre for Astrophysical Surveys which is funded by the Hintze Family Charitable Foundation.
Michael J. Kurtz is an astrophysicist at Harvard University, He has held the title of Astronomer at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian since 1983, and the additional post of Computer Scientist at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory since 1984. He is especially known both for his research into the distribution of galaxies, and for his creation of the Astrophysics Data System.
NGC 4651 is a spiral galaxy located in the constellation of Coma Berenices that can be seen with amateur telescopes, at a distance not well determined that ranges from 35 million light years to 72 million light years.
The Taurus Void is a vast, near-empty region of space situated between the Perseus–Pisces Supercluster and the Virgo Supercluster. The Taurus void is unique because of its relatively close proximity to Earth, and because it helps to define the edge of latter's home supercluster, the Virgo Supercluster. Despite its close proximity to Earth, the Taurus Void is not well-studied because it is partially obscured by the Milky Way when viewed from Earth. In contrast to its ambiguous boundary in the section of sky obscured by the Milky Way, the Taurus Void has a very well-defined boundary with the Perseus-Pisces supercluster.
NGC 498 is a lenticular galaxy located about 260 million light-years away from Earth, in the constellation Pisces. NGC 498 was discovered by astronomer R. J. Mitchell on October 23, 1856.
The NGC 4065 Group is a group of galaxies located about 330 Mly (100 Mpc) in the constellation Coma Berenices. The group's brightest member is NGC 4065 and located in the Coma Supercluster.
NGC 4307 is an edge-on spiral galaxy located about 65 million light-years away in the constellation Virgo. It was discovered by astronomer Christian Peters in 1881 and is a member of the Virgo Cluster. It is also a LINER galaxy.
NGC 4320 is a peculiar galaxy located about 370 million light-years away in the constellation Virgo. It was discovered by astronomer Heinrich d'Arrest on April 15, 1865 and is a member of the NGC 4325 Group.
NGC 3937 is an elliptical or a lenticular galaxy located about 310 million light-years away in the constellation Leo. It was discovered by astronomer William Herschel on April 27, 1785 and is classified as a radio galaxy.
NGC 4324 is a lenticular galaxy located about 85 million light-years away in the constellation Virgo. It was discovered by astronomer Heinrich d'Arrest on March 4, 1862. NGC 4324 has a stellar mass of 5.62 × 1010M☉, and a baryonic mass of 5.88 × 1010M☉. The galaxy's total mass is around 5.25 × 1011M☉. NGC 4324 is notable for having a ring of star formation surrounding its nucleus. It was considered a member of the Virgo II Groups until 1999, when its distance was recalculated and it was placed in the Virgo W Group.
