The June meeting of the Madison Astronomical Society will be our first meeting in our new location. MAS is proud to announce a new partnership with the MMSD Planetarium at Memorial High School in Madison!

This welcoming event for the MAS at the MMSD Planetarium will focus on making everyone comfortable and excited for the new possibilities for both of our organizations under a partnership agreement.  We will tour the spaces in Vel Phillips Memorial HS in which the MAS meetings will be hosted, experience some of the capabilities of the MMSD Planetarium as a learning/teaching and visualization tool, and have an open conversation about all aspects of the partnership into the future.  

Ben Senson is the Planetarium Director for the Madison Metropolitan School District.  He has been an educator for more than 35 years as a classroom teacher of the Earth sciences, physics, aerospace engineering, and astronomy.  At Madison College, he is a senior part-time instructor for physics and astronomy.  His work has included numerous published activities in curriculum projects, including National Project WET and Project Lead the Way Aerospace Engineering.  He is the lead author of “Aerospace Engineering: From the Ground Up” and its accompanying lab manual.  His astronomy research has been conducted through the NITARP program and has focused on cataloging young stellar objects, identifying sources of erroneous Gaia measurements for the proper motion of active galactic nuclei, and cataloging highly variable active galactic nuclei as candidates for reverberation mapping. Ben was the designer and first director of the MMSD Observatory and is currently working on its newest edition to be developed in the MMSD school forest.  In his spare time, Ben is creating a scale model of the UW Student Observatory (currently the Bell-Burnell Observatory) as it would have appeared when built in the 1880s.

Annie Wilcox Panzer is currently the astronomy teacher at Vel Phillips Memorial High School. She is in her fifteenth year of teaching and is a proud MMSD graduate. She has taught almost every science course you can name from seventh to twelfth grade, but prefers to dwell in the Earth sciences. In the summer, she teaches engineering courses with UW-Madison Badger Pre-College and consults on curriculum for other physical science courses. She has a strong passion for involving students in science and community activism. On the rare occasion she is not at school, she chases her three young children, ages 6, 4, and 1. She is eager to learn and grow with MAS.

Getting to the MMSD Planetarium

Located in Vel Phillips Memorial High School, 201 S. Gammon Road, Madison, WI

From the Beltline Highway (Hwys 12 & 14):

Take Highway 12/14 (the Beltline) to the Gammon Road exit,
Exit onto Gammon Road heading north toward West Towne Mall.
Go through three street lights, the 3rd stoplight is at Mineral Point Rd,  proceed straight through this intersection, and Vel Phillips Memorial High School will be on the right.

Parking:

Park anywhere in the large lot on the Mineral Point Rd side of the building and enter at the Welcome Center (silver awning with solar panels).  Go straight ahead ~100 paces up and through the lobby and atrium. The planetarium is to your left as you enter the cafeteria area beyond the atrium.