Jay M. Pasachoff, Field Memorial Professor of Astronomy at Williams College, teaches the astronomy survey course. He is also Director of the Hopkins Observatory there. He received his undergraduate and graduate degrees from Harvard and was then at Caltech, where he has also had recent sabbatical leaves. He has observed 69 solar eclipses. He also studies occultations of stars by Pluto and other objects in the outer Solar System. Pasachoff is Chair of the Working Group on Eclipses of the International Astronomical Union and was Chair of the American Astronomical Society's Historical Astronomy Division. He is also co-editor of Teaching and Learning Astronomy (Cambridge, 2005) and Innovation in Astronomy Education (Cambridge, 2008). He received the American Astronomical Society's Education Prize (2003); the Janssen Prize from the Societe Astronomique de France (2012), and the Richtmyer Memorial Lecture Award, American Association of Physics Teachers (2017). Asteroid (5100) Pasachoff is named after him. Alex Filippenko is a Professor of Astronomy, and the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Distinguished Professor in the Physical Sciences, at the University of California, Berkeley. He received his undergraduate degree from the University of California, Santa Barbara (1979) and his doctorate from the California Institute of Technology (1984). His primary areas of research are exploding stars, gamma-ray bursts, active galaxies, black holes, and observational cosmology. Filippenko was the only person to have been a member of both teams that revealed the Nobel-worthy accelerating expansion of the Universe. He is one of the world's most highly cited astronomers and was elected to the National Academy of Sciences (2009). Filippenko has won many prestigious teaching awards, including the Carnegie/CASE National Professor of the Year among doctoral institutions (2006). He has appeared frequently on science newscasts and television documentaries, especially The Universe series. He received the Carl Sagan Prize for Science Popularization (2004).
Advance praise: 'The Cosmos: Astronomy in the New Millennium, 5th edition, is simply the best-written, introductory astronomy textbook on the market. The instructor will use all of this book. It is comprehensive but brief enough that students' can be reasonably expected to read the entire text in the course of a semester.' Thomas Hockey, University of Northern Iowa Advance praise: 'This book has been the cornerstone of my introductory astronomy teaching at Northwestern since 2004. The text is expertly written in an easy-to-understand manner with many helpful diagrams and beautiful images throughout. This latest edition is a real tour de force with thoroughly updated discussions of cutting-edge research topics ranging from exoplanets to gravitational waves.' David M. Meyer, Northwestern University, Illinois Advance praise: 'The authors strike a right balance between qualitative and quantitative aspects of astronomy which is required for students interested to learn the subject for the first time. This book contains material that is useful for both beginner and advanced students of astronomy.' Chinmoy Bhattacharjee, Rutgers University, New Jersey Advance praise: 'By leading with fundamental physics - light, energy and matter - Pasachoff and Filippenko efficiently set the stage for their modern and thorough coverage of astrophysical concepts and discoveries all the way to present issues in cosmology.' Brian R. Hill, Saint Mary's College of California Advance praise: 'The Cosmos: Astronomy in the New Millennium, 5th edition, is simply the best-written, introductory astronomy textbook on the market. The instructor will use all of this book. It is comprehensive but brief enough that students' can be reasonably expected to read the entire text in the course of a semester.' Thomas Hockey, University of Northern Iowa Advance praise: 'This book has been the cornerstone of my introductory astronomy teaching at Northwestern since 2004. The text is expertly written in an easy-to-understand manner with many helpful diagrams and beautiful images throughout. This latest edition is a real tour de force with thoroughly updated discussions of cutting-edge research topics ranging from exoplanets to gravitational waves.' David M. Meyer, Northwestern University, Illinois Advance praise: 'The authors strike a right balance between qualitative and quantitative aspects of astronomy which is required for students interested to learn the subject for the first time. This book contains material that is useful for both beginner and advanced students of astronomy.' Chinmoy Bhattacharjee, Rutgers University, New Jersey Advance praise: 'By leading with fundamental physics - light, energy and matter - Pasachoff and Filippenko efficiently set the stage for their modern and thorough coverage of astrophysical concepts and discoveries all the way to present issues in cosmology.' Brian R. Hill, Saint Mary's College of California