NGC 1277

HET Measures Most Massive, Most Unusual Black Hole

Karl Gebhardt and his team have used the Hobby-Eberly Telescope to weigh possibly the heaviest black hole yet — 17 billion Suns — in galaxy NGC 1277. The black hole makes up 14% of its galaxy's mass, 100 times more than most. The find could change theories of how black holes and galaxies form and evolve.
Orion Circle members 2012

The Orion Circle: Join us!

The Orion Circle is a special group within the Friends of McDonald that gives extra support to science education. Members contribute $500+ and meet once a year at McDonald Observatory for the Orion Festival, hosted by the director. This year's Orion Festival is April 6th. We'd love for you to join us!
Tycho's Supernova

The White Widow

J. Craig Wheeler has a new idea on the identity of the "parents" of one of the most important types of supernovae — the Type Ia, those used as "standard candles" in cosmology studies that led to the discovery of dark energy, the mysterious force causing the universe's expansion to speed up.
GMT

First GMT Mirror Complete

The first mirror for the Giant Magellan Telescope, a major next-generation telescope in which The University of Texas at Austin is a founding partner, is now completed. Becoming operational in the next decade, GMT will explore planets around other stars, star formation, galaxies, and black holes in the early universe.
Hubble Space Telescope

Understanding Cosmic Dust

Dust may be an annoyance in everyday life, but it's an important building block of stars and planets. To better understand where cosmic dust comes from, Steven Finkelstein is pursuing one of the largest Hubble Space Telescope projects yet, studying thousands of galaxies over eons of cosmic time.

In the Sky

February 16

The planet is low in the west as the Sun sets, and slowly becomes visible as twilight begins to fade. You should be able to find it by about a half-hour after sunset, shining just above the horizon. Binoculars will greatly enhance the view.

More stargazing »