Kitt Peak Observatory

Kitt Peak National Observatory

Overview of some of the telescopes at the Kitt Peak National Observatory
Kitt Peak National Observatory Location in Arizona
Organization	NOAO
Observatory code	695
Location	Tohono O'odham Nation, Arizona, United States
Coordinates	31°57.5′N 111°35.8′W / 31.9583°N 111.5967°W / 31.9583; -111.5967Coordinates: 31°57.5′N 111°35.8′W / 31.9583°N 111.5967°W / 31.9583; -111.5967
Altitude	2,096 metres (6,877 ft)
Weather	72% clear nights
Website	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 Monitors solar variability Coronado Array Three solar instruments used for public education RCT Consortium Telescope Robotically controlled WIYN 0.9 m Telescope Galactic studies Calypso Observatory Recently acquired by LSST Project CWRU Burrell Schmidt Galactic studies SARA Observatory Variable stars, undergraduate training Visitor Center telescopes Three instruments used for nightly public programs Spacewatch 1.8 m Telescope 72 in mirror scavenged from the Mount Hopkins MMT Spacewatch 0.9 m Telescope Spacewatch Super-LOTIS Designed to look for visible signatures of GRBs Auxiliary solar telescopes Two 0.9-m instruments Bok Telescope Versatile MDM Observatory 1.3 m McGraw-Hill Telescope Originally at Ann Arbor MDM Observatory 2.4 m Hiltner Telescope Galactic surveys ARO 12m Radio Telescope One of two telescopes operated by the Arizona Radio Observatory, part of Steward Observatory VLBA One of ten radio-telescopes forming the VLBA DIMM all-sky camera monitors seeing
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The Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO) is a United States astronomical observatory site located on 2,096 m (6,880 ft) Kitt Peak of the Quinlan Mountains in the Arizona-Sonoran Desert on the Tohono O'odham Nation, 88 kilometers (55 mi) west-southwest of Tucson, Arizona. With 24 optical and two radio telescopes, it is the largest, most diverse gathering of astronomical instruments in the world. The observatory is administered by the National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO).

Kitt Peak was selected by its first director, Aden B. Meinel, 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. The second director (1960 to 1971) was Nicholas U. Mayall. 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.