• Astronomy at Williams College spans the very old and the very new. The Hopkins Observatory is the oldest existing astronomical observatory in the United States and houses the earliest telescope by the famous maker Alvan Clark, whose company ultimately made the still-largest refracting telescope. At the same time, current astronomy faculty and students carry out research with some of the world’s most advanced telescopes.
  • The Department offers courses for both majors and non-majors. Many astronomy courses take advantage of on-campus observing facilities that include a 24-inch computer-controlled telescope with CCD detectors for imaging and spectroscopy, along with our computer network for image processing. Specialized telescopes for observing the Sun are adjacent.
  • Students interested in majoring may choose either to be an Astrophysics major, administered jointly with the Physics Department or an Astronomy major. 
  • The Astrophysics major will be elected by students who plan graduate study in astronomy, astrophysics, or a closely related field, and also can be elected by those interested in a wide variety of careers. This major emphasizes the description of the universe and its constituents in terms of physical processes.
  • The Astronomy major is designed for students with an interest in learning about many aspects of modern astronomy, but who might not have planned to undertake the more physics-intensive. The Astronomy major is particularly suitable for students who seek a coherent course of study in astronomy, but who do not intend to pursue it in graduate school. It is also appropriate as a second major for students majoring in another field. The Astronomy major emphasizes understanding the observed properties of the physical systems that comprise the known universe, from the Sun and solar system to the evolution of stars and star clusters to the Milky Way Galaxy to external galaxies and clusters of galaxies.