Department of Physics and Astronomy

John Thorstensen is an optical observational astronomer. He has been at Dartmouth since 1980. His undergraduate degree was from Haverford College (1974), which was followed by graduate studies in the Berkeley (California) Astronomy Department. He specializes in observations of cataclysmic binary stars and parallax measurements of nearby stars. Since 2007 he has served as the director of the MDM Observatory on Kitt Peak, Arizona; MDM is operated by a consortium of five universities. Thorstensen developed the program JSkyCalc and its antecedents, which are widely used in planning observations.

Research Interests (see my web page)

Cataclysmic binaries, especially radial-velocity period measurements; astrometry; parallax measurements of nearby stars and cataclysmics; astronomical software. An up-to-date publication list can be found by querying the Astrophysics Data System.

Contact Information

Office: 239 Wilder
Telephone: (603) 646-2869
E-mail: john.r.thorstensen@dartmouth.edu