New NIRC2 narrow camera distortion solution available. More details...

Caption: Optical distortion in the NIRC2 camera obtained from positional measurements of stars in the globular cluster M92.

For additional results, see the Publications section.

High angular resolution integral-field spectroscopy of the nuclear stellar cluster. More details...

Caption: Surface number density vs. projected distance from Sgr A* in the plane of the sky for different populations, old (late type, red), young (early type, blue) and total number counts from K' imaging.

For additional results, see the Publications section.

High-precision measurements of the properties of our Galaxy's supermassive black hole. More details...

Caption: Left: Astrometric orbit for the central arcsecond star S0-2, assuming a 13-parameter model, which includes the black hole's mass, distance, location in the plane of the sky, and three-dimensional velocity as free parameters. Right: Correlation of the estimated black hole's mass and distance. The density of solutions from Monte Carlo simulations are shown as a color image, with contours marking the 68%, 95%, and 99.7% confidence limits.

For additional results, see the Publications section.

Caption: The orbits of stars within the central 1.0 X 1.0 arcseconds of our Galaxy. In the background, the central portion of a diffraction-limited image taken in 2010 is displayed. While every star in this image has been seen to move over the past 15 years, estimates of orbital parameters are only possible for the seven stars that have had significant curvature detected. The annual average positions for these seven stars are plotted as colored dots, which have increasing color saturation with time. Also plotted are the best fitting simultaneous orbital solutions. These orbits provide the best evidence yet for a supermassive black hole, which has a mass of 4.1 million times the mass of the Sun. More details...

For more images of the Galactic Center, try the Pictures section.

• March, 2009 - White Paper: The Galactic Center: A Laboratory for Fundamental Astrophysics and Galactic Nuclei
• Dec 20, 2008 - Publication: Measuring Distance and Properties of the Milky Way's Central Supermassive Black Hole with Stellar Orbits
• Dec 11, 2008 - News Article: Closing in on the Milky Way's Central Black Hole
• Aug 20, 2007 - Publication: A Constant Spectral Index for Sagittarius A* during Infrared/X-Ray Intensity Variations
• Dec 20, 2005 - Press Release Astronomers Use Laser to Take Clearest Images of the Center of the Milky
• Dec, 2005 - Publication: The First Laser Guide Star Adaptive Optics Observations of the Galactic Center: Sgr A*'s Infrared Color and the Extended Red Emission in its Vicinity
• More news links

The UCLA Galactic Center Group is part of the UCLA Physics and Astronomy department and is dedicated to researching the innermost regions of the Milky Way. High angular resolution infrared observations taken with the Keck telescopes are used to study this extreme environment including the proposed super massive black hole believed to lie at the exact center of our Galaxy.

• Beginners Guide: For a beginner's guide to the galactic center, see Angelle Tanner's Journey to the Center of the Galaxy.
  
  
• Images and Animations: If you are looking for interesting Galactic Center images or movies, try the Pictures section.
  
  
• People: To find out more about the people who make up the UCLA Galactic Center Group, try the People section.