Astronomy Stuff at UCF

I don't want to give the impression that UCF is a bad place to study Astronomy, by the way. They do not offer a major for it, only a minor, but by all indications the faculty is working hard to make a fine planetary astronomy program. The school does offer a Physics major, and those interested in Astronomy probably take the Physics major and fill that out with the Astronomy minor (and hence why the school generally doesn't bother with the AST lab mentioned in the previous post - most of their students are already taking Physics II and it's lab, so few students were signing up for the AST lab).

In fact, UCF researchers have applied for and gotten themselves rather a large share of time on the Spitzer Space Telescope as referenced here on the UCF News & Information Page. The school also has its own observatory, the Robinson Observatory, with "a 20" Ritchie Chretien Telescope" which was just installed within the last year to replace an older, smaller telescope. 

They are currently running several very interesting research projects with the Space Research Initiative, JPL, the National Science Foundation, and of course NASA, as it is practically next door. I'm looking forward to getting into the more serious classes (and, admittedly, a little terrified). Hope they don't mind an English major mucking about and getting in the way. At this rate I'd be happy to sweep the floors and run for coffee if I could just be close to the research looking at or for extrasolar planets!