“A high-school girl, seated next to a famous astronomer at a dinner party, struck up a conversation with him by asking: ‘What do you do for a living?’ ‘I study astronomy,’ he replied. ‘Really?’ said the teenager, wide-eyed. ‘I finished astronomy last year’.” –James Keller

Uranus in Infrared Light; taken from hubblesite.org

The astronomy program at UIS  provides information to the local and occasionally national media about upcoming events, including meteor showers, eclipses, comets, and other activities in the sky that are of public interest. In the past, the campus observatory has supplied live images of a solar eclipse to CNN, ABC, CBS, and NBC and real-time images to all schools in Illinois.

Members of the press or public with questions should contact Prof. John Martin via email ( jmart5@uis.edu) or phone (217-206-8342).