About Our Club

Who Are We?

UA Astronomy Club is comprised of students with many different majors, but one ultimate passion: “SPACE, the final frontier” (Please read that it the voice of Sir Patrick Stewart). There is no requirement to join our club. We strive to make Astro Club a fun and engaging environment in which students have the ability to hear from world-renowned professors and speakers in space science fields, work on groundbreaking research in teams, work on hands-on projects like astrophotography, model rocketry, and planetarium-building. In addition to holding weekly meetings and participating in outreach, we also have social events, such as movie nights, game nights, sports nights, club trips*, and stargazing adventures. If you would like to become a member of Astronomy Club, please contact us or come to our meetings (the time/location is on our home screen).  Dues are $10 per semester and are put toward club projects and activities. We promise to try not to get too nerdy…maybe. 🙂

Click to view our Constitution.

*Every year, Astronomy Club attempts to expand our knowledge and experience a fun, new place that features something astronomy-related. In the past, we have visited places such as the Very Large Array of radio telescopes in Soccorro, New Mexico, and the California Science Center and Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, California. We also regularly try to visit observatories in the surrounding Arizona area, like Kitt Peak, Mt. Lemmon SkyCenter, and Mt. Graham. These trips are partially paid for by club semester dues and the university, but your contributions also help us keep expanding our horizons.

Where Do We Come From?

Students come from all around the world to study Astronomy at the University of Arizona in Tucson, the Astronomy capital of the world! Check out where some of our club members, past and present, are from!

Our Advisor

Dr. Chad Bender is an Associate Professor of Astronomy at Steward Observatory. He specializes in near-infrared and visible light spectroscopy to study the atmospheric structure and orbital dynamics of distant binary objects. He has also done extensive work in the design and writing of algorithms and software for precision analysis of ground-based spectroscopic data, and he has created new techniques for the precise correction of astronomical spectra to account for effects from Earth’s atmosphere. Chad received his undergraduate degree in Physics from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 2000. In 2006, he received his PhD in Physics from Stony Brook University.  He was a research associate at Penn State starting in 2012 before joining the University of Arizona faculty in 2016. During his time in Arizona he has served as Instrument Scientist on two major ground-based spectrographs. We have loved having him as an advisor.

Fun Fact: He is originally from Lincoln, Nebraska.

Astronomy Club Speaker

Dr. Don McCarthy is an integral part of what makes Astronomy Club so amazing. In 1970, he received his undergraduate degree from Princeton in Physics, and graduated with his Ph.D. in Astronomy from the University of Arizona in 1976. He was an Astronomy Professor and Lecturer at Steward Observatory before his retirement in 2022. He is part of the University of Arizona Seventeenth Annual Regents’ Professors, University Distinguished Professors and Distinguished Outreach Faculty. Dr. McCarthy received the 2012 Education Prize from the American Astronomical Society, and the Distinguished Achievement in Science Education from the UA College of Science in 1996. Despite being retired, Dr. McCarthy still speaks at Astronomy Club meetings every week, presenting engaging science and math problems for students, encouraging them to think more critically about the world around them.

Fun Facts: He is also the director of Astronomy Camp, America’s longest running science camp. He grew up in Minnesota, and currently has taken up long-distance biking.

Our 2024 Officers

A roster listing some former club members can be found on the Former Members subpage.