Kitt Peak Observatory

We’re heading south and stopped at Kitt Peak for a quick visit.  The observatory is way up on a mountain (elevation 6875 feet).  While it’s in the upper 60’s below, there’s snow on the ground at the peak.  Plus, it’s very windy; the type of windy where you lean against the wind to move.  It was very “bracing” to walk around between the different buildings.  However, in this picture we’re relatively warm.  It’s an infrared picture from the visitor’s center.

There are 25 optical telescopes and 2 radio telescopes here and is sponsored by NSF and a bunch of universities (even Ohio State and Case Western).  I love astronomy, so it was great to see all these telescopes.  It hits you though that astronomers don’t really look through telescopes anymore.  The cameras and spectrographs take the data.  Astronomers look at the data and the modified pictures.  Well, at least there are still backyard astronomers.

Interesting things included dorms with signs to be quiet for the day sleepers.  There’s a book where it’s recorded when early astronauts came here to observe the moon.  Signatures in the book include the astronauts from the early Mercury program along with guys like Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins. 

The last picture is a solar telescope.  Most of the mechanism is underground along the angle.  Neat!