Mount Lemmon Observatory

Telescopes of the Mount Lemmon Observatory

The Mount Lemmon Observatory Mount Lemmon Observatory (MLO) , also known as the Mount Lemmon Infrared Observatory, is an astronomical observatory and is located at 2,790 m altitude on the summit of Mount Lemmon in the Santa Catalina Mountains about 28 kilometers (17 mi) northeast from Tucson in the US state of Arizona . The facility in the Coronado National Forest is operated with an exemption from the US Forest Service through the Steward Observatory of the University of Arizona and includes a number of independently managed telescopes.

History of the observatory

The Mount Lemmon Observatory was originally built in 1954 as a radar station for the Air Defense Command called Mount Lemmon Air Force Station . After the handover to the Steward Observatory in 1970, the facility was converted into an infrared observatory. Until 2003, a radar tower controlled from Fort Huachuca was used to observe rocket launches from the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico and Vandenberg Air Force Base in California .

instrumentation

The 1.52 meter diameter telescope of the Catalina Sky Survey

The largest telescopes in the observatory are:

• The 152 cm Steward Observatory Telescope is a Cassegrain telescope and is used for the Mount Lemmon Survey (MLS), which is part of the Catalina Sky Survey (CSS). It was built in the late 1960s and was originally installed at Catalina Station on Mount Bigelow in the Santa Catalina Mountains. It was brought to Mount Lemmon in 1972 and installed in its current location in 1975. The original metal main mirror was of poor quality and was replaced in 1977 by a glass mirror made of Cer-Vit . It is one of the telescopes used by the students in the astronomy camps . With him, the asteroid (367789) 2011 AG ₅ discovered that the level 1 on the Torino Scale reached

• A 152 cm Dall Kirkham telescope that can be used in the optical range as well as in the near infrared was commissioned in 1970 and is the only instrument operated by the University of Minnesota (UMN) on Mount Lemmon. It is basically the same design as the 152 cm steward telescope and another in the observatory in the Sierra San Pedro Mártir . The original metal main mirror showed the same weaknesses as that of the Stewart telescope and was replaced in 1974 by a glass mirror made of Cer-Vit. The telescope was operated in cooperation with the University of California, San Diego (UCSD).

• A 1.02 m (40 inch) reflector telescope based on the rare Pressman-Camichel design , in which the primary mirror is spherical and the secondary mirror is oblate ellipsoid. Originally installed in the Catalina complex, it was relocated to the Mount Lemmon Observatory in 1975, overhauled in 2008 and installed in a new dome in 2009. It is used for the automatic further investigation of newly found objects close to the earth.

• A fully automatic telescope with a mirror diameter of 100 cm (39 in) installed in 2003 is the only instrument on Mount Lemmon operated by the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (KASI).

• The 81 cm Schulman (32 in) telescope is a Ritchey-Chrétien-Cassegrain telescope built by RC Optical Systems and was installed in September 2010. It is operated by the Mt. Lemmon SkyCenter and is the largest public observatory in Arizona.

Web links

Commons : Mount Lemmon Observatory  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Steward Observatory homepage
• Mount Lemmon SkyCenter - official site
• Mt. Lemmon Observatory Clear Sky Clock . Forecasts of observing conditions

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} Gerard P. Kuiper: NO. 172 THE LUNAR AND PLANETARY LABORATORY AND ITS TELESCOPES (PDF; 10.3 MB) University of Arizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory. December 31, 1972. Retrieved January 16, 2012.
2. ↑ Steward Observatory 60 "Telescope . University of Arizona Department of Astronomy and Steward Observatory. Retrieved January 16, 2012.
3. ^ CP Sonett: University of Arizona, Department of Planetary Sciences and Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, Tucson, Arizona. Observatory report covering the period from October 1, 1974 to September 30, 1975 . In: Bulletin of the Astronomical Society . 8, 1976, p. 11. bibcode : 1976BAAS .... 8 ... 11S .
4. ^ WB Hubbard: University of Arizona, Department of Planetary Sciences / Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, Tucson, Arizona. Report from October 1, 1976 to September 30, 1977 . In: Bulletin of the Astronomical Society . 10, 1978, p. 16. bibcode : 1978BAAS ... 10 ... 16H .
5. ^ Camp Facilities and Telescopes . Astronomy Camp. Retrieved January 16, 2012.
6. ↑ Asteroid 2011 AG5 - A Reality Check (NASA)
7. ↑ UMN Infrared Astronomy: Mt. Lemmon Observing Facility . University of Minnesota Department of Astronomy. Archived from the original on August 28, 2013. Retrieved January 16, 2012.
8. ^ EP Ney: University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota. Observatory report . In: Bulletin of the Astronomical Society . 7, 1975, p. 150. bibcode : 1975BAAS .... 7..150N .
9. ↑ MOUNT LEMMON OBSERVING FACILITY . University of California, San Diego Center for Astrophysics & Space Sciences. August 17, 2006. Retrieved January 16, 2012.
10. ↑ Christensen, Eric; Larson, S .; Boattini, A .; Gibbs, A .; Grauer, A .; Hill, R .; Johnson, J .; Kowalski, R .; McNaught, R .: The Catalina Sky Survey: Current and Future Work , 2012 bibcode : 2012DPS .... 4421013C
11. ^ Robert L. Waland: Optics of the Cassegrain Telescope 1990, ISBN 9780806233932 .
12. ↑ Wonyong Han, Peter Mack, Chung-Uk Lee, Jang-Hyun Park, Ho Jin, Seung-Lee Kim, Ho-Il Kim, In-Soo Yuk, among others: Development of a 1-m Robotic Telescope System . In: Publications of the Astronomical Society of Japan . 57, 2005, p. 821. bibcode : 2005PASJ ... 57..821H .
13. ↑ ^{a b} Arizona's Largest Public-Only Telescope Now at UA's SkyCenter . The University of Arizona Office of University Communications. October 22, 2010. Retrieved January 16, 2012.
14. ↑ RCOS: 32 inch Carbon Truss Telescope . RC Optical Systems, Inc .. Retrieved January 16, 2012.

Coordinates: 32 ° 26 ′ 35 "  N , 110 ° 47 ′ 18"  W.