Max Planck Institute for Astronomy

The Max Planck Institute for Astronomy (MPIA) is a German astrophysics research institute that is part of the Max Planck Society. It is located in Heidelberg, Germany, and was founded in 1967. It carries out research in astrophysics, it engineers astronomical instruments (including contributions to the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) and Herschel), and it operates a graduate program in cooperation with the University of Heidelberg.

The Max Planck Society also includes other institutes for various astronomy areas:

• Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy, located at Bonn.
• Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics, located at Garching, Germany,
• Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics, (i.e., general relativity), also called the Albert Einstein Institute (AEI), at two locations: Hannover and Potsdam-Golm, Germany.