To study stars, galaxies, the material in between, and the Universe as a whole at a variety of wavelengths, UBC astronomers and astrophysicists take full advantage of major observatories across the globe and in space.Nearby, the optical telescopes of

the Dominion Astrophysical Observatory (near Victoria) and the radio telescopes of the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory (Penticton) are regularly used by both faculty and students. The 3.6-metre aperture of the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope on Mauna Kea, which (with the Adaptive Optics Bonnette) supplies probably the sharpest images currently obtainable from the ground, has become a key research tool for the Department. Despite intense competition for observing time, faculty and graduate students have generally been successful in being allocated a reasonable fraction of the time available for Canadian astronomers on CFHT. In addition, significant amounts of telescope time are regularly obtained on optical telescopes in Mexico, Chile and elsewhere. With Canada a partner in the twin 8-metre, Gemini Telescopes (located in Hawaii and Chile), on which UBC faculty and students have been succesful at obtaining observing time, the future looks very exciting in the optical and near-infrared wavebands.

Members of the Department have also been frequent users of the in New Mexico, and recently of the Very Long Baseline Array. The VLA is one of the world's premier astronomical radio observatories, while the VLBA, consisting of ten remote-controlled radio telescopes comprises the largest dedicated full-time astronomical instrument. Canada has a share in the 15-metre James Clerk Maxwell Telescope, a world-class instrument at millimetre and sub-millimetre wavelengths, located on Mauna Kea, Hawaii. Faculty and students have made regular use of this facility for both spectral and bolometric work (recently with the SCUBA imaging instrument).

Department members also use large single-dish radio telescopes including the 300-m dish at Arecibo, Puerto Rico; the 100-m Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia; and telescopes at Parkes, Australia, and Jodrell Bank, U.K.

Several Liquid Mirror Telescopes (employing rotating mercury) have been designed or built by members of the Department. The latest is the 6-metre Large Zenith Telescope that recently began operation. Located near Vancouver, this telescope will conduct deep multi-band drift-scan surveys for galaxies, quasars, and to distant supernovae.

Several members of the faculty are part of teams obtaining and analysing data from space facilities including HST, the Hubble Space Telescope in the visible & near infrared; FUSE (the Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer) in the ultraviolet; In the microwave region, we are involved with a number of projects including WMAP (The Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe) Plank and Herschel The latter two projects share a ESA platform in Solar orbit at the L5 point. The principal investigator and a ground station for the space telesocpe MOST which studies stellar seismology and hunts for extrasolar planets.

Members of the Department are also heavily involved in plans for future astronomical projects including the Next Generation Space Telescope anf the Thirty Metre Telescope.

The department is also involved in the design, construction and operation of a number of ground- and balloon-based submillimetre and millimetre telescopes designed for studying cosmology. This includes BLAST, ACT and and Spider.