Everything about The Kitt Peak National Observatory totally explained
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 kilometers (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's the largest, most diverse gathering of astronomical instruments in the world.
General information
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 observatory sites are under lease from the Tohono O'odham Nation at the amount of a quarter dollar per acre yearly, which was overwhelmingly approved by the Council in the 1950s. In 2005, the Tohono O'odham Nation brought suit against the National Science Foundation to stop further construction of gamma ray detectors in the Gardens of the Sacred Tohono O'odham Spirit I'itoi, which are just below the summit.
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.
Further Information
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