Ronald F. Dantowitz
Director, Clay Center Observatory

Dantowitz has been fascinated with the stars since childhood. Getting a telescope at age 13 began his obsession to see and record the sharpest lunar and planetary features possible. His quest for sharp images continues to this day, 25 years after having taken his first astrophoto.

He designed the Clay Center Observatory, which was completed in 2002. The observatory’s research-grade, 0.64-m telescope is the largest-aperture publicly accessible astronomical instrument in the Boston area. His primary interests are astronomy education and developing techniques for ultra-high-resolution telescopic imaging. For example, Dantowitz led the team that provided the high-resolution video seen worldwide in 2004 by more than 1 billion people when Space Ship One made its historic flights into space to claim the X Prize.

In 1988, after receiving a  degree in aeronautical engineering degree and completing a year of work at NASA, Dantowitz took a position at the Charles Hayden Planetarium at the Boston Museum of Science. It was at the Museum’s Gilliland Observatory where Dantowitz began developing techniques for high resolution astronomical imaging using video. The techniques he uses and the images he has achieved have been published in scientific journals, magazines, astronomy textbooks, encyclopedias, newspapers, and television programs. His special interest is in imaging orbiting satellites at high resolution through the telescope, although the video techniques he uses also work well on “conventional” solar system targets. Ron’s efforts have produced some of the sharpest ground-based optical images of the moon and planets to date, with resolutions approaching 0.1 arcsecond.

Dantowitz’s goal is to encourage both amateurs and professionals to use video as a serious imaging tool. To this end, he has tested video cameras on telescopes ranging from 10 cm to 2.5 m in aperture. In the May 2000 Astronomical Journal, Dantowitz published a peer-reviewed paper with the world’s first high-resolution images of Mercury, showing impacts and maria on the planet’s “unseen” hemisphere recorded with an inexpensive off-the-shelf video camera.

Marek Kozubal
Research Astronomer

On the schools’ staff since 1999, Kozubal combines a knowledge of astronomy, physics, computer science, programming, IT, and electrical engineering to accomplish a wide variety of tasks. His current activities include satellite and aircraft tracking; high-resolution astronomical imaging, photometry, and spectroscopy; and maintaining the Clay Center Observatory’s IT infrastructure (including running Mac OS X servers, file and network management).

Within the past few years Kozubal has participated in several technically challenging projects. These include creating a lab for processing digital video recordings, the design, development, and system integration of a mobile observatory and trailer system, and collaborations with MIT Lincoln Laboratory for monitoring atmospheric “seeing” and optimizing imaging techniques.

In October 2009 he presented CCO observations of the small asteroid 2008 TC₃ at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society’s Division for Planetary Sciences. The light curve that he and Ron Dantowitz obtained, acquired just hours before the asteroid exploded in Earth’s atmosphere over Sudan, are unique data demonstrating that the irregularly-shaped object was both rotating and tumbling.

J. Kelly Beatty

Beatty recently joined the faculty at Dexter and Southfield Schools, where he teaches high-school courses in astronomy and helps develop astronomy-enriched science curricula for the schools’ lower grade levels.

He holds a Bachelors degree in geology from the California Institute of Technology and a Master’s degree in science journalism from Boston University. He joined the editorial staff of Sky & Telescope in 1974 and now serves as the magazine’s Senior Contributing Editor. Specializing in planetary science and space exploration, Beatty also conceived and edited The New Solar System, considered a standard reference among planetary scientists. He served as the editor of Night Sky, a magazine for beginning stargazers, in 2004-07.

During the 1980s Beatty was among the first Western journalists to gain firsthand access to Soviet space centers. In 1986 he was one of 100 semifinalists for NASA’s Journalist in Space program. Beatty has been honored with the Harold Masursky Award for meritorious service by the Division for Planetary Sciences (DPS) of the American Astronomical Society (2005), the Astronomical League Award for his contributions to the science of astronomy (2006), and the DPS’s inaugural Jonathan Eberhart Planetary Sciences Journalism Award (2009).

John W. Briggs

Fascinated with telescopes and astronomy since childhood, Briggs now teaches high-school physics, statistics, and probability courses at the Dexter and Southfield Schools. He recently served a year as a Visiting Scholar in the Physics Department at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. Before that he served for 14 years as an instrumentation engineer based at the Yerkes Observatory of the University of Chicago. In that capacity and in many other jobs and projects over the years, John has been closely involved in education and outreach, especially during his 1994 winter-over at Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station.

His career also includes astronomical work at the Wesleyan University, Maria Mitchell, Van Vleck, Chamberlin, Harvard College, Mount Wilson, Apache Point, and National Solar observatories. His enthusiasms for practical astronomy, telescope engineering, and history of astronomy are well known among friends and colleagues, and he combines excellent technical experience with gifted communication skills.

Briggs is in high demand both as a public speaker and as a university-level consultant in astronomical instrumentation, curriculum, and educational programming. He maintains a strong interest in history, recently serving on the History Committee of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific; the Historical Instruments Working Group of International Astronomical Union’s Commission 41; and the Committee of the American Astronomical Society’s Historical Astronomy Division (an elected position). He has also served as president of the Antique Telescope Society. His activity as a collector of historical telescopes was featured in the October 2001 issue of Smithsonian magazine.