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Registrar's Web Team
19 August 1997
Degrees Offered
Master of Arts
Doctor of Philosophy
Facilities for research in astronomy are located on the campus in Austin, at the McDonald Observatory in West Texas, and at the California Institute of Technology Submillimeter Observatory on Mauna Kea, Hawaii. Equipment in Austin includes a 16-inch reflector and several smaller telescopes, and a variety of measuring machines and microdensitometers. In addition to the facilities of Academic Computing and Instructional Technology Services, a dedicated Sun SPARCstation 490 and about ninety workstations serve the Department of Astronomy and McDonald Observatory for data reduction and analysis, image processing, and other computing needs. The department operates an electronics shop, engineering and instrumentation laboratories, and a well-stocked research library. The Kuehne Physics-Mathematics-Astronomy Library is located in Robert Lee Moore Hall.
Facilities for research at McDonald Observatory include the 2.7-m reflector, which has Cassegrain and coude foci and a variety of auxiliary instruments including Cassegrain and coude spectrometers equipped with digital detectors. The telescope is supplemented by a versatile computer system. The 2.1-m Struve reflector is used at the Cassegrain focus, or with a large spectrograph at the coude focus. Cassegrain instrumentation includes a low-resolution spectrograph with linear detectors, direct and intensified cameras, two-channel high-speed photometers, a polarimeter, and a Fabry-Perot interferometer.
The Hobby-Eberly telescope is a composite mirror instrument with an effective aperture of about 8.5 m, intended primarily for spectroscopic work. A low-resolution spectrograph will be in use in 1997; medium- and high-resolution instruments will become available over the next few years. Two smaller reflectors, 0.9 m and 0.8 m, are used primarily for photoelectric photometry and CCD surveys. An excellent library is maintained for research and instruction, and other facilities include darkrooms, instrument and machine shops, and transient quarters.
The 10-m submillimeter-wavelength radio telescope built by the California Institute of Technology on Mauna Kea, Hawaii, is also used by faculty members and students in astronomy and electrical and computer engineering; about 10 percent of the time available on the telescope is dedicated to University of Texas at Austin research. This research involves primarily the study of radiation from interstellar molecules; it also includes the development of novel instrumentation.
Graduate instruction and research are conducted in observational astronomy and astrophysics. Observational opportunities are available in conventional photometry, polarimetry, fast photometry of stellar oscillations, spectroscopy and spectrophotometry of planets, stars, nebulae, galaxies, and quasars, galactic and extragalactic research, planetary and cometary studies, infrared and millimeter astronomy, radio astronomy and instrumentation, and space astronomy. There are also instruction and research opportunities in theoretical astrophysics, including the origin of the elements, celestial mechanics, cosmology, stellar structure and evolution, and stellar atmospheres and interstellar material. There are also opportunities for cooperative interdepartmental research with groups in the Department of Physics and the Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics.
Prerequisites for graduate work in astronomy are at least fifteen to eighteen semester hours of upper-division coursework in astronomy and physics, including courses in mechanics, electricity and magnetism, statistical physics, and quantum mechanics; and a satisfactory score on the Graduate Record Examinations Physics Test. The Physics Test must be taken in addition to the General Test of the Graduate Record Examinations, which is required for admission to the Graduate School. An applicant who does not present a satisfactory score on the Physics Test may, on recommendation of the Graduate Studies Committee, be granted a conditional admission to the program requiring removal of deficiencies in physics. A detailed evaluation is made of each new student's physics and astronomy background to identify any deficiencies that should be removed.
Degree Requirements
Master of Arts
All students must complete Astronomy 380E, 383C, 383D, 185C, 386C, 393F, 396C, and 398T. Those who pursue a research project are expected to obtain additional research experience by completing Astronomy 391.
Upon completing an acceptable research project, with thesis or report, the student is awarded a degree. Alternatively, a student is awarded a degree upon completion of preparation for teaching college-level astronomy, which includes teaching experience and preparation of a report.
Doctor of Philosophy
Students seeking the doctoral degree must complete Astronomy 380E, 383C, 383D, 185C, 386C, 393F, 396C, and 398T, or must pass noncredit examinations covering the material taught in these courses. During their second year, students must complete a research project, which they may use to meet the requirements for a Master of Arts degree. Admission to candidacy must be sought from the Graduate School before the end of the sixth long-session semester after entry into the astronomy program.
All students are expected to obtain other research experience (Astronomy 391) in addition to that provided by the second-year research project. There is no foreign language requirement.
Campus address: Robert Lee Moore Hall (RLM) 15.204, Phone (512)
471-3350,
Fax (512) 471-6016
Mailing address: Graduate Program, Department of Astronomy, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 78712-1083
E-mail: studentinfo@astro.as.utexas.edu
URL: http://www.as.utexas.edu/
Chapter Four
Graduate Catalog
Contents
Chapter 1: Graduate Study
Chapter 2: Admission and Registration
Chapter 3: Degree Requirements
Chapter 4: Fields of Study
Chapter 5: Members of Graduate Studies Committees
Appendix: Course Abbreviations
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