Kitt Peak National Observatory

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The Kitt Peak National Observatory

The Kitt Peak National Observatory ( Kitt Peak National Observatory ) is a major astronomical observatory on the summit of 2,095-meter Kitt Peak in the Sonoran Desert , 65.4 km (straight line) southwest of Tucson , Arizona .

Kitt Peak was selected in 1958 as the location for the US National Observatory, which still operates today.

Today the observatory houses around 20 optical telescopes , of which the Mayall Telescope and the WIYN Telescope with main mirrors of 4 m and 3.5 m in diameter are the largest. The Spacewatch project operates two mirror telescopes 1.8 m and 0.9 m in diameter for observing asteroids and comets , in particular for finding objects near the earth . The McMath-Pierce Solar Telescope , the largest solar telescope in the world, and the Kitt Peak Vacuum Telescope are available for observing the sun at Kitt Peak . Finally, the Kitt Peak also houses two radio telescopes 12 m and 25 m in diameter. The latter is used in conjunction with other radio telescopes in the Very Long Baseline Array as a radio astronomical interferometer .

(2322) Kitt Peak , an asteroid of the main outer belt, was named after the observatory.

Illustrations

See also

Web links

Commons : Kitt Peak National Observatory  - collection of images, videos, and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. http://ast.noao.edu/observing/current-telescopes-instruments#kpno
  2. ^ Lutz D. Schmadel : Dictionary of Minor Planet Names . Fifth Revised and Enlarged Edition. Ed .: Lutz D. Schmadel. 5th edition. Springer Verlag , Berlin , Heidelberg 2003, ISBN 978-3-540-29925-7 , pp.  186 (English, 992 pp., Link.springer.com [ONLINE; accessed August 1, 2019] Original title: Dictionary of Minor Planet Names . First edition: Springer Verlag, Berlin, Heidelberg 1992): “1954 UQ 2 . Discovered 1954 Oct. 28 at the Goethe Link Observatory at Brooklyn, Indiana. "
  3. ^ JJ Nassau : The Burrell Telescope of the Warner and Swasey Observatory . In: Astrophysical Journal . bibcode : 1945ApJ ... 101..275N .

Coordinates: 31 ° 57 ′ 48 ″  N , 111 ° 36 ′ 0 ″  W.