The Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian
The Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian
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Wystan Benbow

Center for Astrophysics
Associate Director, Facilities & Telescope
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Wystan Benbow
wbenbow@cfa.harvard.edu

About

As associate director for Facilities and Telescopes, Dr. Benbow has broad oversight of the CfA's facilities and its ground-based telescopes. Beyond this, he is a leader in the field of very high energy (VHE; E >100 GeV) gamma-ray astronomy. For approximately thirty years Dr. Benbow has worked to bring VHE gamma-ray astronomy from its infancy into the main stream. He is the director of VERITAS (https://veritas.sao.arizona.edu/), the world's most sensitive detector of astrophysical very high energy (VHE; E > 100 GeV) gamma rays. Since 1996, he has participated in the Milagro, H.E.S.S. and VERITAS experiments, and through these efforts he has helped increase the VHE source catalog from only three to more than 300 objects. The main focus of his research is VHE and multi-wavelength studies of exotic galaxies, in particular AGN. Dr. Benbow is also contributing to the development of the next-generation VHE gamma-ray facility, the Cherenkov Telescope Array Observatory (CTAO; https://www.ctao.org/). CTAO construction is underway and it is expected to expand the VHE source catalog to more than 1000 sources, bringing VHE gamma-ray astronomy into the era of population-driven science.

PhD, UC Santa Cruz

Telescopes and Instruments

1.5-meter Tillinghast (60-inch) Telescope

The 1.5-Meter (60 Inch) Tillinghast Telescope is a general purpose visible-light telescope located at the Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory (FLWO) in southern Arizona, operated by the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian. Astronomers use this telescope to measure the spectrum of light emitted by a wide variety of objects in the Solar System, the Milky Way, and in distant galaxies.

CfA Operated (OIR) | Open to CfA Scientists | Active

Visit the 1.5 Meter (60 Inch) Tillinghast Telescope Website
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1.2 Meter (48-inch) Telescope

The 1.2-Meter (48 Inch) Telescope is a general purpose visible-light telescope located at the Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory (FLWO), a major observational facility of the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian located in southern Arizona. Astronomers use this telescope to observe objects in the Solar System and the Milky Way, as well as other galaxies, including the supermassive black holes known as quasars. Astronomers also use the 1.2-Meter Telescope to observe star systems that might contain exoplanets, which is a major program for the observatory.

Visit the 1.2-Meter (48 Inch) Telescope Website
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MMT Observatory

The MMT Observatory is the premier visible-light and infrared telescope jointly managed by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, part of the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, and the University of Arizona. Located at the Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory (FLWO) in southern Arizona, this 6.5-meter (21 foot) telescope is used to study objects across the field of astronomy, from the Solar System to distant galaxies. The MMT has provided a testbed for new telescope technologies developed by scientists and engineers at the CfA and the University of Arizona.

Visit the MMT Website
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Very Energetic Radiation Imaging Telescope Array System (VERITAS)

Gamma rays don’t pierce Earth’s atmosphere, but when they strike the air, they produce faint flashes of visible light. The Very Energetic Radiation Imaging Telescope Array System (VERITAS) is a set of four telescopes designed to detect those flashes, providing valuable observations of gamma rays from supernova remnants, black holes, and other extremely high-energy astrophysical events. VERITAS is part of the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory (FLWO) in southern Arizona.

Visit the VERITAS Website
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