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The journey from Earth to astronomy heaven takes just 20 minutes. A modest turnoff from State Route 86, a lightly trafficked slash of asphalt cutting through the Tohono O’odham reservation, begins the constantly rising path to Kitt Peak National Observatory. Each twist of the 12-mile drive shifts the balance between terrestrial and celestial, as the baked, brown Sonoran Desert takes on atmospheric blue overtones and the sky opens wide. Then they pop into view, first in ones and twos and then en masse: the domes, dishes, and strange sheds that house the 23 telescopes of Kitt Peak, the largest, most diverse gathering of astronomical instruments in the world.
FAST FILE: KITT PEAK NATIONAL OBSERVATORY Area: 200 acres Location: Within the Tohono O’odham Nation, 56 miles southwest of Tucson Clear skies: 72 percent of the time Scientist population: More than 500 researchers a year work at Kitt Peak Year founded: 1957 (site selected), 1960 (first telescope installed) Origin of name: Surveyor George Roskruge named it after his sister, Philippa Kitt; the Tohono O’odham call it Ioligam (meaning “manzanita,” a shrub). |
During the day, a displaced calm hangs over the site. Signs outside the two dormitories issue a terse warning: “Day sleepers—quiet, please.” Only a few instruments can operate in the blazing Arizona brightness. The McMath-Pierce Solar Telescope, the largest of its kind, burrows 150 feet deep into the ground to provide a cool, clear view of the sun. The 25-meter (82-foot) dish of the Very Long Baseline Array telescope operates in tandem with nine identical ones around the world to form a 5,000-mile-wide radio antenna; light does not interfere with this work.
After sunset the sky explodes with stars, and Kitt Peak springs to life. Every instrument plays its role. The oldest telescope here, the 0.9-meter Spacewatch, predates the observatory complex by 36 years (it was moved here in 1963), yet it remains an active player. James Scotti of the University of Arizona uses it to catalog asteroids that pass uncomfortably close to home, searching for the one that might be headed toward a catastrophic impact. The newest telescope, the boxy WIYN 3.5 meter, inaugurated in 1994, serves as a test bed of new astronomical technologies. Steve Howell of the National Optical Astronomy Observatory has outfitted it with an experimental silicon chip that electronically removes distortion, which should allow him to track the subtle shadow of a Jupiter-size planet passing in front of its parent star in another solar system far, far away.
But not tonight. High winds and sheets of cloud roll in, severing Kitt Peak’s connection to the sky. Howell shakes his head at the blobby images on his computer screen. He will have to wait until his next observing run. Fortunately, heaven can wait.
1. McMath-Pierce Solar Telescope
Sunlight reflects down a 500-foot shaft to the main mirror. The path is lined with 4.7 miles of pipes carrying chilled water and antifreeze. Light then bounces to various instruments. These have enabled scientists to monitor the sun’s magnetic activity and to find water vapor in its atmosphere.
optical telescope/solar system
2. SOLIS/Kitt Peak Vacuum Telescope
After 29 years of solar imaging, the vacuum telescope was decommissioned in 2002. A newly installed suite of instruments, called SOLIS, is monitoring the sun’s long-term variability, mapping its magnetism, and studying how it stores and releases energy. This information will clarify the sun’s role in climate change.
optical telescope/new technology/solar system
3. Razdow telescope
A companion to the Kitt Peak Vacuum and McMath-Pierce Solar telescopes, the tiny Razdow used to monitor sky conditions and warn observers inside the other two facilities of conditions that would degrade their observations. Now obsolete, it will soon be replaced with a solar telescope for public education.
optical telescope/solar system
4. WHAM telescope
The Wisconsin Hydrogen-Alpha Mapping telescope focuses on the light emitted by hot hydrogen gas. The data it gathers are helping to produce a detailed map of temperatures and densities throughout the Milky Way. Astronomers at the University of Wisconsin at Madison operate WHAM by remote control.
optical telescope/new technology/deep space
5. RCT Consortium telescope
The Robotically Controlled Telescope was built in 1965 as a test bed for future orbiting space telescopes. In its updated form, it receives e-mail requests from astronomers and automatically executes the observations, searching for planets around other stars and monitoring the flickering of gas falling into black holes.
optical telescope/new technology/deep space
6. KPNO 2.1-meter telescope
Once the giant of Kitt Peak, the 2.1 meter is the mountain’s fourth-largest optical telescope. It is primarily used to study infrared rays—slightly longer than visible light—from young stars and distant galaxies. It also revealed the first instance of gravitational lensing, in which gravity focuses the light of a distant object.
optical telescope/new technology/deep space
7. Coudé Feed Tower
Complementing the 2.1 meter, the Coudé Feed shunted a second stream of starlight to the Coudé spectrograph, a device that splits the light into its component wavelengths. That analysis enabled researchers to measure the rotation and subtle pulsation of stars, key information for understanding stellar evolution.
optical telescope/deep space
8. WIYN 0.9-meter telescope
A consortium of three universities (Wisconsin, Indiana, and Yale) and one institution (National Optical Astronomy Observatory) recently upgraded Kitt Peak’s first research telescope, which began operating in 1962. WIYN’s wide, one-degree field of view facilitates the study of nebulas, galaxies, and galaxy clusters.
optical telescope/new technology/deep space/solar system
9. WIYN 3.5-meter telescope 
Everything here is about control: Cool air regulates the mirror’s temperature, actuators adjust its shape, and a new wide-field camera will remove distortion. Such innovations allow studies of comets, quasars, and infant galaxies with a detail never before possible from the ground.
optical telescope/new technology/deep space/solar system
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Edgar O. Smith, a businessman-turned-astrophysicist, designed Kitt Peak’s only private telescope to create the sharpest possible images. The entire housing rolls away on rails to help the telescope cool to ambient temperature; an adaptive optics system adjusts 1,000 times per second to remove atmospheric blurring.
optical telescope/new technology/deep space/solar system
11. CWRU Burrell Schmidt telescope
A Schmidt design has a correcting lens in front of the primary mirror, which yields exceptionally broad, undistorted images. Research at Case Western Reserve University’s telescope concentrates on the large-scale distribution of galaxies, including the vast, near-empty cosmic regions known as voids.
optical telescope/deep space
