aastex-thesis
Modification of the aastex style file for use in meeting NMSU thesis guidelines
What I did was to modify the original, current aastex.sty style file to conform to the NMSU thesis guidelines, and call it aastex-thesis.sty. I've ensured all margins, table/figure/numbering, line spacing, appendices, automatic table of contents, list of tables, and list of figures, etc. etc., are all correct as to the current NMSU thesis guidelines. The benefits of this are that deluxetable will work perfectly as it does for your regularly submitted papers, all astronomy journal commands are all included, all aastex symbols are included by default, aastex plotting (epsfig, includegraphics, plotone, plottwo, etc.) works, so in the end you can just paste in papers, or write it up like you would a normal astronomy paper, and BAM, thesis done.
These files contain a minimal working example of a thesis, and is compile-able as is. (The subject is exo-whales - you know they're out there! ;) I've commented nearly every line of the latex code with exactly what it does and is for, so it should be really easy to use and understand, and if need be, modify.
pdflatex main.tex should do the trick, though the example figures are .eps and so you might need to make sure your system can convert to pdf on the fly. If not just convert to pdf manually and change the exentsion in the .tex files.
Cheers, Jeff