Jay Pasachoff is Field Memorial Professor of Astronomy and Director of the Hopkins Observatory at Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts, and a Visiting Scientist at Carnegie Observatories in residence through June 2019. A veteran of 70 solar eclipses (and counting), he is Chair of the International Astronomical Union's Working Group on Solar Eclipses and a member of the American Astronomical Society's Solar Eclipse Task Force. His recent research includes studies of the dynamics of the solar corona studied from the ground at eclipses and from spacecraft, and the temperature and structure of the corona over the solar-activity cycle from images and spectra. He also studies the atmosphere of Pluto through observation of stellar occultations. His recent eclipse and other solar research has been supported by the NSF and the Committee for Research and Exploration of the National Geographic Society; his Pluto research has recently been supported by NASA.
Pasachoff received the 2003 Education Prize of the American Astronomical Society, the 2012 Janssen Prize of the Société Astronomique de France, and the 2015 Richtmyer Lecture Award from the American Association of Physics Teachers.
Syzygies: Solar and Lunar Eclipses, Occultations, and Transits of Mercury and Venus
February 11, 2019
When: February 11, 2019 2:00PM
Jay Pasachoff
Williams College
On August 21, 2017, a total solar eclipse's band of totality swept across the Continental United States from coast to coast for the first time in 99 years. I will show and discuss some of the the images and spectra my team has obtained at the most recent eclipses,as well as comment on annular or partial eclipses observed elsewhere. I will discuss our observational tests underway for the comparison of models of coronal heating. I will also discuss plans for the 2019 and 2020 total eclipses that cross Chile and Argentina.
I will also report on our observations of transits not only of the Sun by the Moon (that is, a solar eclipse), but also across the Sun by Venus and by Mercury. I will discuss ground-based imaging and Total Solar Irradiance space measurements as well as observations of the 2012 transit of Venus with Hubble by reflection off Jupiter and directly with Cassini from Saturn, providing solar-system close-up analogues to exoplanet transits.
I will discuss my work on stellar occultations, often overlapping with LCOGT observations, in particular of Pluto. I also discuss my participation in the NASA expedition to Argentina for the occultation of 2014 MU69, nicknamed Ultima Thule, in advance of New Horizons’ flyby on January 1.
My work at solar eclipses has recently been mainly supported by the US National Science Foundation’s Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences Division, and the Committee for Research and Exploration of the National Geographic Society.
Jay Pasachoff