Gary Alan Wegner (born
Seattle, Washington on December 26, 1944) is an
Americanastronomer, 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]
Early life
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 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]
Private life
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.
Publications
Wegner has published over 320 peer-reviewed papers in astronomy.[4] The 10 with the most citations are :
Schechter, P.L., Bailyn, C.D., Barr, R., Barvainis, R., Decker, C.M., Bernstein, G.M., Blakeslee, J.P., Bus, S.J., Dressler, A., Falco, E.E., Fesen, R.A., Fischer, P., Gebhardt, K., Harmer, D., Hewitt, J.N., Hjorth, J., Hurt, T., Jaunsen, A.O., Mateo, M., Mehlert, D., Richstone, D.O.,
Sparke, L.S., Thorstensen, J.R., Tonry, J.L., Wegner, G., Willmarth, D.W., Worthey, G. "The quadruple gravitational lens PG 1115+080: Time delays and models" (1997) Astrophysical Journal, 475 (2 PART II), pp. L85-L88. Cited 132 times.
Giovanelli, R., Haynes, M.P., Herter, T., Vogt, N.P., Wegner, G., Salzer, J.J., Da Costa, L.N., Freudling, W. "The I band Tully-Fisher relation for cluster galaxies: Data presentation" (1997) Astronomical Journal, 113 (1), pp. 22–52. Cited 105 times.
Giovanelli, R., Haynes, M.P., Herter, T., Vogt, N.P., Da Costa, L.N., Freudling, W., Salzer, J.J., Wegner, G. "The I band Tully-Fisher relation for cluster galaxies: A template relation. Its scatter and bias corrections" (1997) Astronomical Journal, 113 (1), pp. 53–79. Cited 96 times.
Giovanelli, R., Haynes, M.P., Salzer, J.J., Wegner, G., Da Costa, L.N., Freudling, W. "Extinction in Sc galaxies" (1994) Astronomical Journal, 107 (6), pp. 2036–2054. Cited 88 times.
Giovanelli, R., Haynes, M.P., Da Costa, L.N., Freudling, W., Salzer, J.J., Wegner, G. "The Tully-Fisher relation and H0" (1997) Astrophysical Journal, 477 (1 PART II), pp. L1-L4. Cited 78 times.
Bernardi, M., Renzini, A., Da Costa, L.N., Wegner, G., Alonso, M.V., Pellegrini, P.S., Rité, C., Willmer, C.N.A. "Cluster versus field elliptical galaxies and clues on their formation" (1998) Astrophysical Journal, 508 (2 PART II), pp. L143-L146. Cited 76 times.
McHardy, I.M., Jones, L.R., Merrifield, M.R., Mason, K.O., Newsam, A.M., Abraham, R.G., Dalton, G.B., Carrera, F., Smith, P.J., Rowan-Robinson, M., Wegner, G.A., Ponman, T.J., Lehto, H.J., Branduardi-Raymont, G., Luppino, G.A., Efstathiou, G., Allan, D.J., Quenby, J.J. "The origin of the cosmic soft X-ray background: Optical identification of an extremely deep ROSAT survey" (1998)
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 295 (3), pp. 641–671. Cited 69 times.
Da Costa, L.N.., Freudling, W., Wegner, G., Giovanelli, R., Haynes, M.P., Salzer, J.J. "The mass distribution in the nearby universe" (1996) Astrophysical Journal, 468 (1 PART II), pp. L5-L8. Cited 62 times.
Haynes, M.P., Giovanelli, R., Chamaraux, P., Da Costa, L.N., Freudling, W., Salzer, J.J., Wegner, G. "The I-band Tully-Fisher relation for Sc galaxies: 21 Centimeter H I line data" (1999) Astronomical Journal, 117 (5), pp. 2039–2051. Cited 61 times.
Giovanelli, R., Haynes, M.P., Salzer, J.J., Wegner, G., Da Costa, L.N., Freudling, W. "Dependence on luminosity of photometric properties of disk galaxies: Surface brightness, size, and internal extinction" (1995) Astronomical Journal, 110 (3), pp. 1059–1070. Cited 60 times.
Geller, M.J., Kurtz, M.J., Wegner, G., Thorstensen, J.R., Fabricant, D.G., Marzke, R.O., Huchra, J.P., Schild, R.E., Falco, E.E. "The century survey: A deeper slice of the universe" (1997) Astronomical Journal, 114 (6), pp. 2205–2211. Cited 59 times.