1. 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