1.
National Optical Astronomy Observatory
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The National Optical Astronomy Observatory is the United States national observatory for ground based nighttime ultraviolet-optical-infrared astronomy. The National Science Foundation funds NOAO to provide forefront astronomical research facilities for US astronomers, however, professional astronomers from any country in the world may apply to use the telescopes operated by NOAO under the NSFs open skies policy. Astronomers submit proposals for review to gain access to the telescopes which are scheduled every night of the year for observations. The combination of open access and the merit based science proposal process makes NOAO unique in the world. The NOAO headquarters are located in Tucson, Arizona and are co-located with the headquarters of the National Solar Observatory, the NOAO is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, under a cooperative agreement with the NSF. NOAO operates world class research telescopes in both the northern and southern hemispheres and these telescopes are located at Kitt Peak and Cerro Tololo in the US and Chile, respectively. Complemented with similar instruments, the two sites allow US astronomers to make observations over the entire sky. Instrumentation includes optical to near infrared wavelength cameras and spectrometers, CTIO has a base and office facility in the seaside town of La Serena, Chile. The CTIO telescopes are located some 70 km inland in the foothills of the Chilean Andes, access to the observatory is made through the picturesque Elqui Valley. The Blanco 4m played the role in discovery of Dark Energy. The Blanco began hosting a new 3-degree field of view called the Dark Energy Camera, also known as DECam. This camera is being built at Fermilab in Chicago, USA, CTIO operates, and is a partner in the 4. 1m Southern Astrophysical Research Telescope. SOAR concentrates on high resolution observations and will soon deploy an adaptive optics module to help support such observations. KPNO is located near Tucson, AZ, USA, the mountain, Kitt Peak, is part of the tribal lands of the Native American people the Tohono Oodham. The mountain has been leased from the Tohono Oodham since 1958, the native name for the mountain is loligam which means manzanita. The observatory was established in 1958, and its largest telescope, a new wide field imager working at near infrared wavelengths has been deployed to advance studies of galactic star formation, cosmology, and the structure and evolution of galaxies. NOAO also manages US participation in the international Gemini Observatory, Gemini is a partnership of Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The US holds a 50% share of the project which provides public access time on each of Geminis two 8m telescopes, one telescope is located near CTIO in Chile, and the other is located on the island of Hawaii
2.
Kitt Peak
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Kitt Peak is a mountain in the U. S. state of Arizona, and at 6,883 feet is the highest point in the Quinlan Mountains. It is the location of the Kitt Peak National Observatory, the radio telescope at the Observatory is one of ten dishes comprising the Very Long Baseline Array radio telescope. The peak was named in English by County Surveyor George J. Roskruge for his sister, Phillippa, on his 1893 Pima County Survey map, Roskruge spelled the name Kits. At the request of the wife of George F. Kitt, Kitt Peak is the second-highest peak on the Tohono Oodham Indian reservation, and as such is the second-most sacred after Baboquivari Peak. Near the summit is Iitois Garden, the residence of the nations elder brother deity. The name Ioligam means red stick in reference to the abundance of bushes on
3.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
4.
Nicholas U. Mayall Telescope
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Mayall Telescope, also known as the Mayall 4-meter Telescope, is a four-meter reflector telescope located at the Kitt Peak National Observatory and named after Nicholas U. It saw first light on February 27,1973, initial observers included, D. Crawford, Nicholas Mayall, and Arthur Hoag. It was dedicated on June 20,1973 after Mayalls retirement as director, the mirror has an f/2.7 hyperboloidal shape. It is made from a two-foot thick fused quartz disk that is supported in a mirror cell. The prime focus has a field of six times larger than that of the Hale reflector. An identical reflector was built at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory. The Mayall debuted neatly between the Hale and Shane in the early 1970s, largest telescopes 1973, List of observatories List of largest optical reflecting telescopes Media related to Nicholas U. Mayall Telescope at Wikimedia Commons The Mayall 4-meter Telescope - official site
5.
Reflecting telescope
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A reflecting telescope is an optical telescope which uses a single or combination of curved mirrors that reflect light and form an image. The reflecting telescope was invented in the 17th century as an alternative to the telescope which. Although reflecting telescopes produce other types of aberrations, it is a design that allows for very large diameter objectives. Almost all of the telescopes used in astronomy research are reflectors. Reflecting telescopes come in many variations and may employ extra optical elements to improve image quality or place the image in a mechanically advantageous position. Since reflecting telescopes use mirrors, the design is referred to as a catoptric telescope. The idea that curved mirrors behave like lenses dates back at least to Alhazens 11th century treatise on optics, the potential advantages of using parabolic mirrors, primarily reduction of spherical aberration with no chromatic aberration, led to many proposed designs for reflecting telescopes. The most notable being James Gregory, who published a design for a ‘reflecting’ telescope in 1663. It would be ten years, before the experimental scientist Robert Hooke was able to build this type of telescope, Isaac Newton has been generally credited with building the first reflecting telescope in 1668. It used a spherically ground metal primary mirror and a diagonal mirror in an optical configuration that has come to be known as the Newtonian telescope. A curved primary mirror is the reflector telescopes basic optical element that creates an image at the focal plane, the distance from the mirror to the focal plane is called the focal length. The primary mirror in most modern telescopes is composed of a glass cylinder whose front surface has been ground to a spherical or parabolic shape. A thin layer of aluminum is deposited onto the mirror. Some telescopes use primary mirrors which are made differently, molten glass is rotated to make its surface paraboloidal, and is kept rotating while it cools and solidifies. The resulting mirror shape approximates a desired paraboloid shape that requires grinding and polishing to reach the exact figure needed. Reflecting telescopes, just like any other system, do not produce perfect images. The use of mirrors avoids chromatic aberration but they produce other types of aberrations, to avoid this problem most reflecting telescopes use parabolic shaped mirrors, a shape that can focus all the light to a common focus. Field curvature - The best image plane is in general curved and it is sometimes corrected by a field flattening lens
6.
WIYN Observatory
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The WIYN Observatory is owned and operated by the WIYN Consortium. Its telescope, a 3. 5-meter instrument, is the second largest optical telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona. The telescope is located in a dome, and has a blank diameter of 3.51155 m. HYDRA is a multiobject spectrograph using fiber optics positioned in the plane to allow up to 100 separate objects to be observed at a time. The light is guided to a room under the main telescope where a CCD camera records the spectrum of each object. The field of view is approximately 1 degree, WHIRC is a near infrared high resolution imaging camera commissioned in 2008. WHIRC was a joint project between the WIYN partners and STScI and it consists of a 2k × 2k detector providing an excellent pixel scale of 0. 1/pixel and a field of view of 200 ×200 arcsec. WHIRC can be used with the WIYN Tip/Tilt Module to provide exquisite high-resolution images, a large set of filters is available. The One Degree Imager is the flagship of WIYNs new instrument initiatives, ODI utilizes both WIYNs one degree field of view and excellent image quality. The original design for ODI was to cover the one square degree field using a total of 64 Orthogonal Transfer Arrays with a total of 1 GigaPixel, Orthogonal transfer arrays allow to actively improve image sharpness by correcting images for tip/tilt motion during the integration. Corrections will be done over the field of view, making ODI a unique. ODI is funded by the WIYN partners and the National Science Foundation, ODI was first commissioned in a partial or prototype configuration using 13 OTAs in the summer of 2012, and was available for science observations since early 2013. PODI was decommissioned in late 2014 to undergo a significant upgrade, the upgraded ODI, now using 30 OTAs in a 5x6 layout was re-commissioned in summer 2015 and has been available for science observations since October 2015. Funded by NASA, the EPDS spectrograph will be able to search for planets by looking for minute variations in the radial velocity of the host star caused by the orbiting planet. For more details see the related WIYN/NASA press release, miniMo is a CCD consisting of two 2048 ×4096 pixel chips, with a field of view of 9.6 arcminutes. The two separate chips allows for faster readout of the image than would have been otherwise possible, the WIYN Consortium is governed by the Board of Directors, which includes three members of each partner institution. The Board meets twice a year, the Science Steering Committee provides scientific guidance to the Board and the WIYN Director. Between 2000–2008, the WIYN Director was Dr. George Jacoby, since December 2010, Dr. Pat Knezek serves as interim director
7.
Meade Instruments
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It is the worlds largest manufacturer of telescopes. Besides selling under its Meade brand name, the company sells solar telescopes under the Coronado name and its products are also imported and sold in Europe by a former subsidiary under the Meade and Coronado brand names. Founded in 1972 by John Diebel, Meade started as a mail order seller of small refracting telescopes, Meade started manufacturing its own line of products in 1976, introducing 6 and 8 reflecting telescopes models in 1977. In 1980 the company ventured into the Schmidt-Cassegrain market that up to that time had been dominated by Celestron Corporation, Meade has a long history of litigation with other companies over infringement of their patents, particularly with its once bitter rival Celestron. In August 2008, Meade modified their line of telescopes with changes to the optical surfaces in design they call Advanced Coma-Free optics. Past production sites include 16542 Millikan Avenue in Irvine, which was used in the 1990s, Meade production was consequently moved to a new build plant in 6001 Oak Canyon, located as well in Irvine. The Oak Canyon plant was in use for about a decade until 2009, after production was moved to an expanded plant in Tijuana. In October 2013, Meade Instruments merged with Ningbo Sunny Electronic Co, Ltd, a Chinese manufacturer, and Joseph Lupica became CEO of Meade. In February 2015, Victor Aniceto succeeded Lupicia as president, in the new design the full aperture corrector is slightly altered in shape and combined with a spherical primary mirror. Meades literature originally describe their ACF as a variation on the Ritchey-Chrétien telescope, after a legal settlement Meade dropped the claim. They were first produced in 90 mm Maksutov Cassegrain telescope in 1996 and they range in size from 90 mm to 125 mm. Schmidt-Newtonian telescopes. Models LXD75, including Newtonian, Schmidt-Newtonian, Advanced Coma-Free, and achromatic refractor telescopes ETX-LS, the Meade Coronado telescopes are called Solarmax 40 or higher depending on the model. Achromatic Refractors Meade also sells under the Meade name imported low to moderate cost reflectors and refractors intended for the retail market. Accessories produced by Meade include the series 5000 eyepieces that are comparable in construction to those of Chester, New York-based Tele Vue Opticals Nagler, Panoptic, Meade sells Deep Sky and Lunar digital imagers for telescopes. They also market the mySKY & mySKY Plus, multi-media GPS devices guiding users to the sky, the complaint was against Meade advertising their RCX400 and LX200R models as Ritchey-Chrétien. The plaintiffs claimed these models did not use true Ritchey-Chrétien optics and therefore Meade, in January 2008, Meade settled, with a small amount paid to the plaintiffs and the requirement to rename the affected products, not using any initials that might suggest Ritchey-Chrétien. On September 27,2006, Finkelstein, Thompson & Loughran filed a class action lawsuit against Meade, the complaint alleged that, throughout the Class Period, defendants misrepresented and omitted material facts concerning Meades backdating of stock option grants to two of its officers. A settlement of $2,950,000 was reached in December,2007, Meade has had financial problems in the past and has survived with the help of its founder, John Diebel, purchasing back the company
8.
Large Synoptic Survey Telescope
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The LSST was the top-ranked large ground-based project in the 2010 Astrophysics Decadal Survey. The project officially began construction 1 August 2014 when the National Science Foundation authorized the FY2014 portion of its construction budget, the ceremonial laying of the first stone was performed on 14 April 2015. Site construction began on April 14,2015, with engineering first light anticipated in 2019, science first light in 2021, and full operations for a ten-year survey commencing in January 2022. The LSST design is unique among large telescopes in having a wide field of view,3.5 degrees in diameter. For comparison, both the Sun and the Moon, as seen from Earth, are 0.5 degrees across, combined with its large aperture, this will give it a spectacularly large etendue of 319 m2∙degree2. The large hole reduces the primary mirrors light collecting area to 35 square metres, the primary and tertiary mirrors are being constructed as a single piece of glass, the M1M3 monolith. A3. 2-gigapixel prime focus digital camera will take a 15-second exposure every 20 seconds, repointing such a large telescope within 5 seconds requires an exceptionally short and stiff structure. This in turn implies a very small f-number, which requires very precise focusing of the camera, the camera will include three corrector lenses to reduce aberrations, the first lens at 1. 55m diameter will be the largest lens ever built. The filter will be between the second and third lens, with the third lens forming the window in front of the focal plane. The focal plane will be 64 cm in diameter, and will include 189 CCD detectors each of 16 megapixels. Allowing for maintenance, bad weather and other contingencies, the camera is expected to take over 200,000 pictures per year, far more than can be reviewed by humans. Managing and effectively data mining the enormous output of the telescope is expected to be the most technically difficult part of the project, initial computer requirements are estimated at 100 teraflops of computing power and 15 petabytes of storage, rising as the project collects data. Particular scientific goals of the LSST include, Measuring weak gravitational lensing in the sky to detect signatures of dark energy. Mapping small objects in the Solar System, particularly near-Earth asteroids, detecting transient optical events such as novae and supernovae. It is also hoped that the vast volume of data produced will lead to additional serendipitous discoveries, synoptic is derived from the Greek words σύν and ὄψις, and describes observations that give a broad view of a subject at a particular time. Some of the data from the LSST will be available by Google as an up-to-date interactive night-sky map. LSST construction is underway, with the NSF funding authorized as of 1 August 2014, early development was funded by a number of small grants, with major contributions in January 2008 by software billionaires Charles Simonyi and Bill Gates of $20 and $10 million respectively. $7.5 million was included in the U. S. Presidents FY2013 NSF budget request, the Department of Energy is expected to fund construction of the digital camera component by the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, as part of its mission to understand dark energy
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