Observatories: Local & Remote Astronomy Program General The Astronomy Department is located on the beautiful grounds of the University of Virginia in the attractive city of Charlottesville. We have 18 faculty, 15 research scientists & postdocs, and 30 grad students. We have strong research interests in observation, theory and instrumentation. The National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) is located 200 yards away, together with the North American ALMA Science Center (NAASC) and the New Technology Center (NTC), and their staff includes 30 adjuct faculty. Typically, 1/3 of our students have NRAO-related projects. Lawn & Rotunda Astronomy Department NRAO Observatories: Local & Remote Local Observatories: we run 26”, 31” and 40” telescopes in two observatories for teaching, public outreach, and grad student instrument development. Remote Observatories: we belong to the Steward Consortium with access to: LBT (2x8.4m); Magellan (6.5m x2); MMT (6.5m); Bok (2.3m); VATT (1.8m) and SMT (10m). We are members of SDSS and use Apache Point Observatory, with ARC (3.5m). Our APOGEE instrument is part of SDSS-III. NRAO Facilities: our students frequently use the VLA, VLBA, GBT and ALMA. Some develop radio instrumentation. Observatories Class Trip: every graduate class spends a week visiting observatories in the Southwest: Kitt Peak, Mt Graham, Apache Point, the VLA and the Arizona mirror lab. LBT Local Observatories Magellan ARC 3.5m Class Trip Southwest LBT VLA APO Research Programs Observation Theory Instrumentation APOGEE TripleSpec MW Structure Starbursts AGN feedback MHD Accretion Hot Jupiters GRBs Seven faculty pursue theoretical research in many fields, including: Exoplanets & protoplanetary disks Supernovae & gamma-ray bursts Accretion disks & radiative transfer Star formation & protostar jets Astrochemistry Clusters of galaxies Large scale structure Students can play a major or minor role in the development of instruments in our IR Lab, led by Mike Skrutskie. Recent instruments include: APOGEE (I & II): Multi-fiber H-band high-res spectrograph for SDSS-III LMIRcam: mid-IR camera for LBT TripleSpec: near-IR spectrograph for Palomar 5m, Keck 10m and ARC 3.5m Thirteen faculty pursue observational research in many fields, including: Milky Way structure and evolution Star formation and the ISM Astrochemistry Planetary astronomy & exoplanets Active and starburst galaxies Galaxy clusters Near field cosmology