The University of California Observatories (UCO) is a multi-campus astronomical research unit of the

University of California The University of California (UC) is a public land-grant research university system in the U.S. state of California. The system is composed of the campuses at Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, San Diego, San Francisco, ...

, with headquarters on the

UC Santa Cruz The University of California, Santa Cruz (UC Santa Cruz or UCSC) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Cruz, California. It is one of the ten campuses in the University of California system. Located on Monterey Bay, on the edge of ...

campus. UCO operates the

Lick Observatory The Lick Observatory is an astronomical observatory owned and operated by the University of California. It is on the summit of Mount Hamilton, in the Diablo Range just east of San Jose, California, United States. The observatory is managed by th ...

on Mount Hamilton, and the technical labs at UC Santa Cruz and

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

. UCO is also a managing partner of the

W. M. Keck Observatory The W. M. Keck Observatory is an astronomical observatory with two telescopes at an elevation of 4,145 meters (13,600 ft) near the summit of Mauna Kea in the U.S. state of Hawaii. Both telescopes have aperture primary mirrors, and when comp ...

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only stat ...

, and the center for the UC participation in the

Thirty-Meter Telescope The Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) is a planned extremely large telescope (ELT) that has become controversial due to its location on Mauna Kea, on the island of Hawaiʻi. The TMT would become the largest visible-light telescope on Mauna Kea. ...

(TMT) project. UCO was founded in 1988 to recognize the expansion of responsibilities of the Lick Observatory Headquarters to include managing the UC share of the W.M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii.

Leadership

The first UCO Director was Dr. Robert Kraft, who transitioned from his position as the Lick Observatory Director at the founding of UCO. Kraft was responsible for guiding the development of the UC role in the W.M. Keck Observatory and the partnership in Keck with Caltech. In 1991, Dr. Joe Miller became the second UCO Director and oversaw the successful completion of the two 10-meter Keck Telescopes and the initial UC Keck instruments. In 2005 Miller stepped down and Dr. Michael Bolte became the UCO interim Director. In 2006 Bolte became the UCO Director and served till 2012. Dr. Sandra Faber was Interim Director for 2013/2014, Dr.

Claire Max Claire Ellen Max (born September 29, 1946) is a Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC) and is affiliated with the Lick Observatory. She is the Director of the Center for Adaptive Optics at UC ...

Interim Director in 2015 and Dr. Claire Max became Director in 2016.

Instrumentation Program

A number of instruments and adaptive optics systems have been built at the UC Observatories labs in UC Santa Cruz and UCLA.

External links

University of California Observatories
{{authority control University of California Astronomy institutes and departments