Astronoblog

Wow, Tonima said pretty much everything about our part of the trip! I guess that leaves me to show you how it went.

Picture # / Description:

1) Scott and Tonima, well rested and ready to head up the mountain!

2) Welcome to Kitt Peak!

3) Can you guess why it might be a problem to drive on a curvy mountain road without headlights (so as to not disturb image taking)?

4) Land of Domes! Taken from our ridge, looking onto the next ridge.

5) The WIYN 0.9m Telescope! Notice the louvers to help control the conditions inside the dome.

6) The McMath Solar Observatory. What you see is in fact only 40% of the telescope, the rest is underground!

7) They’re not kidding. The group who was observing the night we arrived, John and Scott from Indiana University in Bloomington, IN showed us a video of them attempting to drown a scorpion back down the drain.  Needless to say, we kept those drain covers particularly tight and checked our shoes before putting them on each morning.

8) Looking out towards the Mexico border, only 60 miles away.

9) The telescope. Big enough that Tonima needed a bit of help to get the mirror cover off, even standing on the ladder.

10) The Steward Observatory, operated by Arizona University. The most recognizable object on the mountain.

11) The VLBA radio telescope on Kitt Peak.  This telescope works in parallel with 9 other arrays across the country, from Hawaii to Connecticut to the Virgin Islands, forming an effective array size of 5000 miles!

12) More friends that lived at the house.

13) The sun arises after a long night of observing, as we drive back to Tucson.