Program Overview

The Department of Astronomy at the University of Texas is one of the largest in the United States, with twenty active teaching faculty, twelve research scientists, a large number of research associates and postdoctoral fellows, over 40 graduate students, and about 100 undergraduate students. The research activities of the faculty and staff span virtually all of modern astronomy, from cosmology, first stars, galaxy formation and evolution, supernovae, black holes, and gamma-ray bursts, to our solar system, extrasolar planetary systems, star and planet formation and evolution, and the interstellar medium.
 

A low student-teacher ratio ensures close work with faculty and researchers in the student’s area of interest. Many faculty members maintain active international collaborations, and frequently use the world’s premier ground and space based observatories. Collaborations are also common with groups in physics, aerospace engineering, electrical engineering, computer science, and geological science.
 

The association between the Department of Astronomy and McDonald Observatory offers many benefits. Graduate students typically receive about 25% of the nights on the two largest telescopes at McDonald, with additional time being granted to their advisors for joint projects. Students doing dissertation research receive high priority on all telescopes.

McDonald Observatory

The Observatory complex is located 450 miles west of Austin in the Davis Mountains, one of the darkest sky areas in the continental United States. At present, there are four primary research telescopes: the 10 m Hobby-Eberly Telescope (HET), 2.7 m Harlan J. Smith Telescope, 2.1 m Otto Struve Telescope, and the 0.8 m Telescope. The HET is an innovative departure from classical telescope design and gathers an enormous amount of light, primarily for spectroscopy.
 

The Observatory is equipped with a wide range of state-of-the-art instrumentation for optical and infrared spectroscopy and imaging, including VIRUS-P, the integral-field spectrograph prototype of the HETDEX project, and the innovative, high-resolution, near-infrared IGRINS. Our astronomers and students also make frequent use of national and international facilities, including Hubble Space Telescope, and are founding partners in the next generation Giant Magellan Telescope under construction at Las Campanas Observatory in Chile.

Austin Facilities

The University of Texas at Austin is a leading institution of higher education and research, the largest state-supported university, and the oldest and largest of the University of Texas System. It is second only to Harvard in the number of endowed faculty positions and many of the faculty are members of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, as well as Pulitzer or Nobel Prize winners.
 

The University offers many excellent facilities and resources to graduate astronomy students. The University of Texas at Austin has the sixth largest academic library system in North America, the fifth largest in the United States, with more than eight million volumes. The Physics, Mathematics and Astronomy Building (PMA) is home to the Kuenhe Library which houses a wealth of astronomical reference materials.
 

A 16-inch telescope on the roof of PMA and a 9-inch telescope in nearby T.S. Painter Hall offer students and the public an introduction to the night sky. The Astronomy Department and the Observatory also offer up-to-date computer facilities, including networks of workstations and personal computers. The Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) supports computational modeling with some of the world’s most powerful supercomputers. Machine and electronic shops, as well as specialized equipment, are also available.