Kitt Peak National Observatory

The Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO) is a United States astronomical observatory located on a 2,096 m (6,880 ft) peak of the Quinlan Mountains in the Arizona-Sonoran Desert on the Tohono O'odham Nation, 88 kilometres (55 miles) southwest of Tucson. The observatory is considered to be part of the National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO), although some of the telescopes located here, like those at the MDM Observatory, belong to other groups such as the University of Arizona's Steward Observatory. With 23 telescopes, it is the largest, most diverse gathering of astronomical instruments in the world.

General information

Kitt Peak National Observatory
Overview of some of the telescopes at the Kitt Peak National Observatory.
Organization	NOAO
Location	Tohono O'odham Nation, Arizona, United States
Coordinates	31° 57.5' N, 111° 35.8' W map
Altitude	2,096 m (6,875 ft)
Weather	72% clear nights
Webpage	http://www.noao.edu/kpno/
Telescopes
KPNO Nicholas U. Mayall Telescope	4.0 m Ritchey-Chrétien reflector
WIYN Telescope	3.5 m Ritchey-Chrétien reflector
McMath-Pierce Solar Telescope	Unobstructed solar reflector
KPNO 2.1 m Telescope	Fourth largest on the mountain
Coudé Feed Tower	Coudé spectrograph
SOLIS/Kitt Peak Vacuum Telescope	Solar telescope
Razdow Telescope	Weather monitoring for the solar telescopes
WHAM Telescope	Milky Way temperature and density mapping
RCT Consortium Telescope	Remotely controlled
WIYN 0.9 m Telescope	Galactic studies
Calypso Observatory	Only private telescope on the mountain
CWRU Burrell Schmidt	Galactic studies
SARA Observatory	Variable stars, undergraduate training
ETC/RMT	No longer operating
Spacewatch 1.8 m Telescope	72 in mirror scavenged from the Mount Hopkins MMT
Spacewatch 0.9 m Telescope	Spacewatch
Super-LOTIS	Follow-on to the ETC/RMT
HAT-1	Recently relocated to nearby Mount Hopkins
Bok Telescope	Versatile
MDM Observatory 1.3 m McGraw-Hill Telescope	Originally at Ann Arbor
MDM Observatory 2.4 m Hiltner Telescope	Galactic surveys
	HF radio-telescope, built atop a tank turret
VLBA	One of ten radio-telescopes forming the VLBA

Kitt Peak was selected in 1958 as the site for a national observatory under contract with the National Science Foundation (NSF) and was administered by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy. The land was leased from the Tohono O'odham under a perpetual agreement. In 1982 NOAO was formed to consolidate the management of three optical observatories — Kitt Peak, the National Solar Observatory facilities at Kitt Peak and Sacramento Peak, New Mexico, and the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile.

The principal instruments at KPNO are the Mayall 4 metre telescope; the WIYN 3.5 metre telescope and further 2.1 m, 1.3 m, 0.9 m, and 0.4 m reflecting telescopes. The McMath-Pierce Solar Telescope located on the facilities is the largest solar telescope in the world, and the largest unobstructed reflector (it doesn't have a secondary mirror in the path of incoming light). The National Radio Astronomy Observatory 12 m radio telescope that was decommissioned in 2002 is also in the location.

Kitt Peak is also famous for hosting the first telescope (an old 91 cm reflector) used to search for near-Earth asteroids, and calculating the probability of an impact with planet Earth.

Mayall Telescope at Kitt Peak

See also

* List of observatories
* List of radio telescopes

External links

* Kitt Peak National Observatory - official site
* Kitt Peak Webcam
* Kitt Peak NightSkyLive overhead webcam, nighttime only

Side view of the McMath-Pierce Solar Telescope at Kitt Peak

Telescopes at Kitt Peak