Gary A. Wegner


Gary Alan Wegner 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.

Early life

Gary Wegner grew up in Washington State and was interested and involved in Astronomy from an early age. His first published work comprised drawings of the surface of the planet Mercury. As a youth, he constructed a large telescope in his backyard, and received a Westinghouse Science Talent Search award when he was in high school, earning him a trip to Washington D.C.

Academic work

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.
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.

Private life

He has been married to Cynthia Kay Wegner since 1966 and has five children and two grandchildren.
He is the father of Josef Wegner, professor of Egyptology at the University of Pennsylvania and discoverer of the tomb of pharaoh Woseribre Senebkay.

Publications

Wegner has published over 320 peer-reviewed papers in astronomy. The 10 with the most citations are :