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
9.
Warner and Swasey Observatory
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The Warner and Swasey Observatory is the astronomical observatory of Case Western Reserve University. Warner and Ambrose Swasey, who built it at the beginning of the 20th century, it was located on Taylor Road in East Cleveland, Ohio. The observatory, which at that time housed a 9. 5-inch refractor, was donated in 1919 to the Case School of Applied Science, the newer 24-inch Burrell Schmidt telescope was built in 1939. Due to rising pollution in Cleveland, a new station in Geauga Countys Montville Township was established in 1950s. Named after Jason John Nassau, the station housed the Burrell telescope. Instead of Burrell the station was equipped with the 36-inch robotic telescope, in 2008 Nassau Station was sold to the Geauga Park District and subsequently incorporated into its Observatory Park. The observatory currently operates the old 9. 5-inch refractor at the universitys University Circle campus, the old site on Taylor Road was sold in 1983. The observatory was built by Worchester R. Warner and Ambrose Swasey, owners of Warner & Swasey Company and they became trustees of the Case School of Applied Science, and built an observatory in East Cleveland, which they gave to the school in 1919. This original observatory building was located on Taylor Road four miles east of the university campus and housed a 9. 5-inch refractor, the building was designed by the firm of Walker and Weeks. In subsequent years the observatory grew to several more telescopes and instruments, such as the 24-inch Burrell Schmidt telescope, as well as an astronomical library. In the 1950s, it became apparent that the pollution from Cleveland was beginning to make cutting-edge research impossible from the East Cleveland site. A new site was constructed 30 miles to the east in Geauga County, known today as the Nassau Station, in order to compensate for the move, a 36-inch telescope was soon installed at the Taylor Road facility. The telescope was moved from Ohio to Arizona in May 1979, the Taylor Road facility was sold in 1983, was abandoned, and remained neglected until 2005 when it was sold to a couple who planned to convert the building into a residence. The plans stalled when its new owner was convicted of mortgage fraud, the 24-inch Burrell Schmidt Telescope was originally built in 1939 by Warner & Swasey Company of Cleveland, Ohio and was housed at the Taylor Road facility. It is currently housed at Kitt Peak National Observatory near Tucson, the telescope recently had its optics upgraded with a very wide field of view CCD array, which is much more sensitive than the photographic plates. It is the instrument used today by the Case astronomers, the Nassau Station, originally constructed in the 1950s, currently houses a 36-inch reflecting telescope. It is named after observatory director Jason John Nassau, who was a prominent astronomer at the time, work was carried out in the 1990s to make the telescope capable of remote viewing, making it one of the first telescopes to be used in this manner
10.
Bok Telescope
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The Bok Telescope is the largest telescope operated solely by Steward Observatory. It finds much use from astronomers from University of Arizona, Arizona State University, the telescope operates year-round, except during the August summer-shutdown when maintenance is performed while the weather is poor. The Bok Telescope was named after the astronomer and director of Steward Observatory from 1966–1969, Bart Bok. It was used on March 18,2007 by Bruno Sicardy to view Plutos occultation of a star in Sagittarius, the building itself features a very long spiral staircase leading to the telescope and a balcony called The Bok Walk. There are currently 3 instruments that are used at the 90-inch. The Steward 256x256 NIR Camera, which has been available at the telescope since 1991, Bok globules List of largest optical telescopes in the 20th century Kitt Peak National Observatory - site of telescope Bok Telescope Home Page Steward 256x256 NIR Camera
11.
MDM Observatory
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The MDM Observatory is an optical astronomical observatory on Kitt Peak, adjacent to Kitt Peak National Observatory. It is owned and operated by the University of Michigan, Dartmouth College, Ohio State University, Columbia University, the MDM acronym stands for Michigan-Dartmouth-MIT, because the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was part of the operating consortium in the past. It has two reflecting telescopes, the 2.4 m Hiltner Telescope, used for surveys, and the 1.3 m McGraw-Hill Telescope. The mirror of the 2.4 m Hiltner Telescope is aluminum-coated Cer-Vit, the telescope was built in 1986 and the mirrors were re-polished in 1991. It was named after astronomer W. Albert Hiltner, the 1.3 meter, actually 1.27 m clear aperture, telescope is aluminum-coated Cer-Vit, and usable foci include f/7.5 and f/13.5. The telescope was installed at Stinchfield Woods, Michigan in 1969. Asteroid 4432 McGraw-Hill is named in its honor, MDM Observatory Aerial view of observatory Kitt Peak Clear Sky Clock Forecasts of observing conditions
12.
Steward Observatory
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Steward Observatory is the research arm of the Department of Astronomy at the University of Arizona. Its offices are located on the UA campus in Tucson, Arizona, established in 1916, the first telescope and building were formally dedicated on April 23,1923. It now operates, or is a partner in telescopes at five locations in Arizona, one in New Mexico, one in Hawaii. It has provided instruments for three different space telescopes and numerous terrestrial ones, Steward also has one of the few facilities in the world that can cast and figure the very large primary mirrors used in telescopes built in the past decade. Steward Observatory owes its existence to the efforts of American astronomer, in 1906, Douglass accepted a position as Assistant Professor of Physics and Geography at the University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona. Over the next 10 years, all of Douglass’ efforts to secure funding from the University and the Arizona Territorial Legislatures ended in failure. During this time period, Douglass served the University of Arizona as Head of the Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, Interim President, and finally Dean of the College of Letters, Arts, & Sciences. Then on October 18,1916, University President Rufus von KleinSmid announced that a donor had given the University $60,000 “…to be used to buy a telescope of huge size. ”That donor was later revealed to be Mrs. Lavinia Steward of Oracle. Mrs. Steward was a widow who had an interest in astronomy. Douglass made plans to use the Steward gift to construct a 36-inch diameter Newtonian reflecting telescope, the situation was further delayed by the fact that up until this time, the expertise in large telescope mirror making was in Europe. The war made it impossible to contract with a European company, so Douglass had to find an American glass company that was willing to develop this expertise. After a couple of failed castings, the Spencer Lens Co. of Buffalo, the telescope was finally installed in the observatory building in July 1922, and the Steward Observatory was officially dedicated on April 23,1923. This installation is to be devoted to scientific research, scientific research is business foresight on a large scale. It is knowledge obtained before it is needed and this I believe is the essence of education wherever such education is not strictly vocational. The student learns many facts and has much training, so it is with the research institutions. In this Observatory I sincerely hope and expect that the boundaries of knowledge will be advanced along astronomical lines. Astronomy was the first science developed by our primitive ancestors thousands of years ago because it measured time, Steward Observatory manages three different observing locations in southern Arizona, Mount Graham International Observatory, Mount Lemmon Observatory, and Catalina Station on Mount Bigelow. It also operates telescopes at two additional important observatories, Kitt Peak National Observatory and Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory on Mount Hopkins, Steward is a partner in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey-III, which is located in New Mexico at Apache Point Observatory
13.
Very Long Baseline Array
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These ten radio antennas work together as an array that forms the longest system in the world that uses very long baseline interferometry. The longest baseline available in this interferometer is about 8,611 kilometres, the construction of the VLBA began in February 1986 and it was completed in May 1993. The first astrometrical observation using all ten antennas was carried out on May 29,1993, the total cost of building the VLBA was about $85 million. Each receiver in the VLBA consists of a dish antenna 25 meters in diameter. This contains the electronics and machinery for the receiver, including low-noise electronics, digital computers, data storage units. Each of the antennas is about as tall as a building when the antenna is pointed straight up. The signals from each antenna are recorded on a bank of approximately one-terabyte hard disc drives, once the disc drives are loaded with information, they are carried to the Pete V. Domenici Science Operations Center at the NRAO in Socorro. There the information undergoes signal processing in a set of digital computers that carry out the interferometry. These computers also make corrections for the rotation of the Earth, the shifts in the crust of the Earth over time. The Very Long Baseline Array usually makes radio observations at wavelengths from three millimeters to 90 centimeters, or in words, at frequencies from 0.3 gigahertz to 96 gigahertz. Within this frequency range, the VLBA observes in eight different frequency bands that are useful for radio astronomy, the VLBA also makes observations in two narrow radio bands below one gigahertz that include spectral lines produced by bright maser emissions. These four additional sites are brought online for as much as 100 hours per four-month trimester, in this configuration, the entire array is known as the High-Sensitivity Array. These sites, with coordinates, are as follows, Distance between each VLBA baseline, The longest baseline in the array is 8,611 kilometres, minimum angular resolution, List of radio telescopes Official site
14.
Astronomical seeing
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The astronomical seeing conditions on a given night at a given location describe how much the Earths atmosphere perturbs the images of stars as seen through a telescope. The most common seeing measurement is the diameter of the intensity across the seeing disc. The size of the disc is determined by the astronomical seeing conditions at the time of the observation. The best conditions give a seeing disk diameter of ~0.4 arcseconds and are found at high-altitude observatories on small islands such as Mauna Kea or La Palma and this can easily mean a factor of 100 between the potential and practical resolution. Starting in the 1990s, new adaptive optics have been introduced that can correct for these effects. In viewing an object such as Mars, occasionally a still patch of air will come in front of the planet. Before the use of charge-coupled devices, there was no way of recording the image of the planet in the brief moment other than having the observer remember the image and draw it later. This had the effect of having the image of the planet be dependent on the observers memory, the effects of atmospheric seeing are qualitatively similar throughout the visible and near infra-red wavebands. At large telescopes the long exposure image resolution is slightly higher at longer wavelengths. However, when light enters the Earths atmosphere, the different temperature layers and different wind speeds distort the light waves, the effects of the atmosphere can be modeled as rotating cells of air moving turbulently. At most observatories, the turbulence is only significant on scales larger than r0, the distortion changes at a high rate, typically more frequently than 100 times a second. In a typical image of a star with an exposure time of seconds or even minutes. The diameter of the disk, most often defined as the full width at half maximum, is a measure of the astronomical seeing conditions. It follows from definition that seeing is always a variable quantity, different from place to place, from night to night. Astronomers often talk about good nights with a low average seeing disc diameter, the FWHM of the seeing disc is usually measured in arcseconds, abbreviated with the symbol. A1. 0″ seeing is a one for average astronomical sites. The seeing of an environment is usually much worse. Good seeing nights tend to be clear, cold nights without wind gusts, warm air rises, degrading the seeing, as do wind and clouds
15.
Astronomy
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Astronomy is a natural science that studies celestial objects and phenomena. It applies mathematics, physics, and chemistry, in an effort to explain the origin of those objects and phenomena and their evolution. Objects of interest include planets, moons, stars, galaxies, and comets, while the phenomena include supernovae explosions, gamma ray bursts, more generally, all astronomical phenomena that originate outside Earths atmosphere are within the purview of astronomy. A related but distinct subject, physical cosmology, is concerned with the study of the Universe as a whole, Astronomy is the oldest of the natural sciences. The early civilizations in recorded history, such as the Babylonians, Greeks, Indians, Egyptians, Nubians, Iranians, Chinese, during the 20th century, the field of professional astronomy split into observational and theoretical branches. Observational astronomy is focused on acquiring data from observations of astronomical objects, theoretical astronomy is oriented toward the development of computer or analytical models to describe astronomical objects and phenomena. The two fields complement each other, with theoretical astronomy seeking to explain the results and observations being used to confirm theoretical results. Astronomy is one of the few sciences where amateurs can play an active role, especially in the discovery. Amateur astronomers have made and contributed to many important astronomical discoveries, Astronomy means law of the stars. Astronomy should not be confused with astrology, the system which claims that human affairs are correlated with the positions of celestial objects. Although the two share a common origin, they are now entirely distinct. Generally, either the term astronomy or astrophysics may be used to refer to this subject, however, since most modern astronomical research deals with subjects related to physics, modern astronomy could actually be called astrophysics. Few fields, such as astrometry, are purely astronomy rather than also astrophysics, some titles of the leading scientific journals in this field includeThe Astronomical Journal, The Astrophysical Journal and Astronomy and Astrophysics. In early times, astronomy only comprised the observation and predictions of the motions of objects visible to the naked eye, in some locations, early cultures assembled massive artifacts that possibly had some astronomical purpose. Before tools such as the telescope were invented, early study of the stars was conducted using the naked eye, most of early astronomy actually consisted of mapping the positions of the stars and planets, a science now referred to as astrometry. From these observations, early ideas about the motions of the planets were formed, and the nature of the Sun, Moon, the Earth was believed to be the center of the Universe with the Sun, the Moon and the stars rotating around it. This is known as the model of the Universe, or the Ptolemaic system. The Babylonians discovered that lunar eclipses recurred in a cycle known as a saros
16.
Observatory
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An observatory is a location used for observing terrestrial or celestial events. Astronomy, climatology/meteorology, geology, oceanography and volcanology are examples of disciplines for which observatories have been constructed, historically, observatories were as simple as containing an astronomical sextant or Stonehenge. Astronomical observatories are mainly divided into four categories, space based, airborne, ground based, ground-based observatories, located on the surface of Earth, are used to make observations in the radio and visible light portions of the electromagnetic spectrum. Most optical telescopes are housed within a dome or similar structure, Telescope domes have a slit or other opening in the roof that can be opened during observing, and closed when the telescope is not in use. In most cases, the upper portion of the telescope dome can be rotated to allow the instrument to observe different sections of the night sky. Radio telescopes usually do not have domes, for optical telescopes, most ground-based observatories are located far from major centers of population, to avoid the effects of light pollution. The ideal locations for modern observatories are sites that have dark skies, a percentage of clear nights per year, dry air. At high elevations, the Earths atmosphere is thinner, thereby minimizing the effects of atmospheric turbulence, sites that meet the above criteria for modern observatories include the southwestern United States, Hawaii, Canary Islands, the Andes, and high mountains in Mexico such as Sierra Negra. Major optical observatories include Mauna Kea Observatory and Kitt Peak National Observatory in the USA, Roque de los Muchachos Observatory in Spain, and Paranal Observatory in Chile. Specific research study performed in 2009 shows that the best possible location for ground-based observatory on Earth is Ridge A — a place in the part of Eastern Antarctica. This location provides the least atmospheric disturbances and best visibility, beginning in 1930s, radio telescopes have been built for use in the field of radio astronomy to observe the Universe in the radio portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. Since the mid-20th century, a number of observatories have been constructed at very high altitudes, above 4. The largest and most notable of these is the Mauna Kea Observatory, the Chacaltaya Astrophysical Observatory in Bolivia, at 5,230 m, was the worlds highest permanent astronomical observatory from the time of its construction during the 1940s until 2009. It has now surpassed by the new University of Tokyo Atacama Observatory. As a result, the resolution of space telescopes such as the Hubble Space Telescope is often much smaller than a ground-based telescope with a similar aperture. However, all these advantages do come with a price, Space telescopes are much more expensive to build than ground-based telescopes. Due to their location, space telescopes are also difficult to maintain. The Hubble Space Telescope was serviced by the Space Shuttle while many other space telescopes cannot be serviced at all, Airborne observatories have the advantage of height over ground installations, putting them above most of the Earths atmosphere
17.
Arizona
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Arizona is a state in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the Western United States and the Mountain West states and it is the sixth largest and the 14th most populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix, Arizona is one of the Four Corners states. It has borders with New Mexico, Utah, Nevada, California, and Mexico, Arizonas border with Mexico is 389 miles long, on the northern border of the Mexican states of Sonora and Baja California. Arizona is the 48th state and last of the states to be admitted to the Union. Historically part of the territory of Alta California in New Spain, after being defeated in the Mexican–American War, Mexico ceded much of this territory to the United States in 1848. The southernmost portion of the state was acquired in 1853 through the Gadsden Purchase, Southern Arizona is known for its desert climate, with very hot summers and mild winters. There are ski resorts in the areas of Flagstaff, Alpine, in addition to the Grand Canyon National Park, there are several national forests, national parks, and national monuments. To the European settlers, their pronunciation sounded like Arissona, the area is still known as alĭ ṣonak in the Oodham language. Another possible origin is the Basque phrase haritz ona, as there were numerous Basque sheepherders in the area, There is a misconception that the states name originated from the Spanish term Árida Zona. See also lists of counties, islands, rivers, lakes, state parks, national parks, Arizona is in the Southwestern United States as one of the Four Corners states. Arizona is the sixth largest state by area, ranked after New Mexico, of the states 113,998 square miles, approximately 15% is privately owned. The remaining area is public forest and park land, state trust land, Arizona is well known for its desert Basin and Range region in the states southern portions, which is rich in a landscape of xerophyte plants such as the cactus. This regions topography was shaped by volcanism, followed by the cooling-off. Its climate has hot summers and mild winters. The state is well known for its pine-covered north-central portion of the high country of the Colorado Plateau. Like other states of the Southwest United States, Arizona has an abundance of mountains, despite the states aridity, 27% of Arizona is forest, a percentage comparable to modern-day France or Germany. The worlds largest stand of pine trees is in Arizona
18.
Sonoran Desert
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It is the hottest desert in Mexico. It has an area of 260,000 square kilometers, the western portion of the United States–Mexico border passes through the Sonoran Desert. In phytogeography, the Sonoran Desert is within the Sonoran Floristic Province of the Madrean Region in southwestern North America, the desert contains a variety of unique and endemic plants and animals, such as the saguaro and organ pipe cactus. It is bounded on the west by the Peninsular Ranges, which separate it from the California chaparral and woodlands, to the north in California and northwest Arizona, the Sonoran Desert transitions to the colder-winter, higher-elevation Mojave, Great Basin, and Colorado Plateau deserts. To the east and southeast, the transition to the coniferous Arizona Mountains forests and Sierra Madre. To the south the Sonoran–Sinaloan transition subtropical dry forest is the zone from the Sonoran Desert to the tropical dry forests of the Mexican state of Sinaloa. The deserts sub-regions include the Colorado Desert of southeastern California, many ecologists now consider Shreves Vizcaíno and Magdalena regions, which lie on the western side of the Baja California Peninsula, to be a separate ecoregion, the Baja California Desert. The Pinacate National Park includes the only active Erg dune region in North America, the nearest city to the Reserva de la Biosfera el Pinacate y Gran Desierto de Altar is Puerto Peñasco in the state of Sonora, Mexico. The Sonoran Desert area southeast of Tucson and near the Mexican border is vital habitat for the population of jaguars living within the United States. Many plants not only survive, but thrive in the conditions of the Sonoran Desert. Many have evolved to have specialized adaptations to the desert climate, the Sonoran Deserts biseasonal rainfall pattern results in more plant species than any other desert in the world. The Sonoran Desert includes plant genera and species from the family, palm family, cactus family, legume family. The Sonoran is the place in the world where the famous saguaro cactus grows in the wild. Cholla, beavertail, hedgehog, fishhook, prickly pear, nightblooming cereus, creosote bush and bur sage dominate valley floors. Indigo bush and Mormon tea are other shrubs that may be found, wildflowers of the Sonoran Desert include desert sand verbena, desert sunflower, and evening primroses. Ascending from the valley up bajadas, various such as velvet mesquite, palo verde, desert ironwood, desert willow. Shrubs found at higher elevations include whitethorn acacia, fairy duster, in the desert subdivisions found on Baja California, cardon cactus, elephant tree, and boojum tree occur. The California fan palm is found in the Colorado Desert section of the Sonoran Desert and it is found at spring-fed oases, such as in Anza Borrego Desert State Park, Joshua Tree National Park, and the Kofa National Wildlife Refuge
19.
Tohono O'odham Nation
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The Tohono Oodham Nation is the collective government body of the Tohono Oodham tribe in the United States. The Tohono O’odham Nation governs four separate pieces of land for an area of 2.8 million acres. These lands are located within the Sonoran Desert of south central Arizona and are exposed to the Mexico–United States border for 74 miles along its southern border. The Nation is organized into 12 local districts and employs a system of government. Sells, Arizona is the Nations largest community and functions as its capital, the Nation has approximately 28,000 enrolled members, the majority of whom live off of the reservations. In 1874, President of the United States Ulysses S. Grant signed an order creating the San Xavier Indian Reservation. In 1882, President Chester A. Arthur signed an order creating the Gila Bend Indian Reservation as additional lands for the Tohono O’odham people. In 1916, a reservation was created by executive order with Indian Oasis as its headquarters. In 1937, The Tohono Oodham Nation, then called the Papagos Tribe of Arizona, in 1960, the Army Corps of Engineers completed construction of the Painted Rock Dam on the Gila River. Flood waters impounded by the dam periodically inundated approximately 10,000 acres of the Gila Bend Indian Reservation, the area lost by the tribe contained a 750-acre farm and several communities. Residents were relocated to a 40-acre parcel of land named San Lucy Village, near Gila Bend, in 2009, The Nation acquired 650 acres of land near Why, Arizona with the intention of eventually creating a new district of the Tohono Oodham Nation for the Hia C-eḍ Oodham. On 30 October 30,2012, a new law created the Hia-Ced District as the new 12th district of the Tohono Oodham Nation. Most Tohono Oodham people live in the United States, however, a small number are located across the border in northwestern Mexico. The Tohono O’odham Nation speaks a language, Oodham, which is the 10th most-spoken indigenous language in the United States. The people are nominally Catholic however the Nations schools teach native language, the Nation has a population of approximately 28,000 enrolled members. The majority of the Nations members live off the reservations, the main reservation, Tohono O’odham Indian Reservation, has a resident population of approximately 11,000 people. The San Xavier Indian Reservation has a resident population of 1,200 people, the Gila Bend Indian Reservation has a total population of approximate 1700 people, and Florence Village has a population of approximately 195 people. The remaining approximate 14,600 members live off the reservations, the lands of the Nation are located within the Sonoran Desert in south central Arizona
20.
Tucson, Arizona
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Tucson is a city and the county seat of Pima County, Arizona, United States, and home to the University of Arizona. The 2010 United States Census put the population at 520,116, the Tucson MSA forms part of the larger Tucson-Nogales combined statistical area, with a total population of 1,010,025 as of the 2010 Census. Tucson is the second-largest populated city in Arizona behind Phoenix, both of which anchor the Arizona Sun Corridor, the city is located 108 miles southeast of Phoenix and 60 mi north of the U. S. –Mexico border. Tucson is the 33rd largest city and the 53rd largest metropolitan area in the United States, Major incorporated suburbs of Tucson include Oro Valley and Marana northwest of the city, Sahuarita south of the city, and South Tucson in an enclave south of downtown. Communities in the vicinity of Tucson include Casas Adobes, Catalina Foothills, Flowing Wells, Midvale Park, Tanque Verde, Tortolita, towns outside the Tucson metro area include Benson to the southeast, Catalina and Oracle to the north, and Green Valley to the south. The Spanish name of the city, Tucsón, is derived from the Oodham Cuk Ṣon, meaning base of the black, Tucson is sometimes referred to as The Old Pueblo. Tucson was probably first visited by Paleo-Indians, known to have been in southern Arizona about 12,000 years ago, recent archaeological excavations near the Santa Cruz River have located a village site dating from 2100 BC. The floodplain of the Santa Cruz River was extensively farmed during the Early Agricultural Period and these people constructed irrigation canals and grew corn, beans, and other crops while gathering wild plants and hunting. The Early Ceramic period occupation of Tucson saw the first extensive use of vessels for cooking. The groups designated as the Hohokam lived in the area from AD600 to 1450 and are known for their vast irrigation canal systems and their red-on-brown pottery. Jesuit missionary Eusebio Francisco Kino visited the Santa Cruz River valley in 1692, a separate Convento settlement was founded downstream along the Santa Cruz River, near the base of what is now A mountain. Hugo OConor, the father of the city of Tucson, Arizona authorized the construction of a military fort in that location, Presidio San Agustín del Tucsón. During the Spanish period of the presidio, attacks such as the Second Battle of Tucson were repeatedly mounted by Apaches, eventually the town came to be called Tucson and became a part of Sonora after Mexico gained independence from Spain in 1821. Tucson was not included in the Mexican Cession and Cookes road through Tucson became one of the important routes into California during the California Gold Rush, Arizona, south of the Gila River, was obtained via treaty from Mexico in the Gadsden Purchase on June 8,1854. Tucson became a part of the United States of America, although the American military did not formally take control until March 1856. In 1857, Tucson became a station on the San Antonio-San Diego Mail Line. The Overland Mail Corporation attempted to continue running, however, following the Bascom Affair, devastating Apache attacks on the stations, from August 1861 to mid-1862, Tucson was the western capital of the Confederate Arizona Territory, the eastern capital being Mesilla. In 1862, the California Column drove the Confederate forces out of Arizona, Tucson and all of what is now Arizona were part of New Mexico Territory until 1863, when they became part of the new Arizona Territory
21.
National Science Foundation
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The National Science Foundation is a United States government agency that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National Institutes of Health, with an annual budget of about US$7.0 billion, the NSF funds approximately 24% of all federally supported basic research conducted by the United States colleges and universities. In some fields, such as mathematics, computer science, economics, and the social sciences, the current NSF director, confirmed in March 2014, is astronomer France A. Córdova, former president of Purdue University. The NSF seeks to fulfill its mission chiefly by issuing competitive, the NSF also makes some contracts. Some proposals are solicited, and some are not, the NSF funds both kinds, the NSF does not operate its own laboratories, unlike other federal research agencies, notable examples being the NASA and the National Institutes of Health. The NSF receives over 50,000 such proposals each year and those funded are typically projects that are ranked highest in a merit review process, the current version of which was introduced in 1997. For example, reviewers cannot work at the NSF itself, nor for the institution that employs the proposing researchers, all proposal evaluations are confidential, the proposing researchers may see them, but they do not see the names of the reviewers. However, both already had been mandated for all NSF merit review procedures in the 2010 re-authorization of the America COMPETES Act. The Act also includes an emphasis on promoting potentially transformative research, most NSF grants go to individuals or small groups of investigators, who carry out research at their home campuses. Other grants provide funding for research centers, instruments. Still, others fund national-scale facilities that are shared by the community as a whole. In addition to researchers and research facilities, NSF grants also support science, engineering, Undergraduates can receive funding through Research Experiences for Undergraduates summer programs. K-12 and some community college instructors are eligible to participate in compensated Research Experiences for Teachers programs, the NSFs workforce numbers about 1,700, nearly all working at its Arlington headquarters. In June 2013 it was announced that the NSF would relocate its headquarters to Alexandria, Virginia in 2017. S, examples include initiatives in, Nanotechnology The science of learning Digital libraries The ecology of infectious diseases The NSF was established by the National Science Foundation Act of 1950. Its stated mission is To promote the progress of science, to advance the health, prosperity, and welfare. Some historians of science have argued that the result was a compromise between too many clashing visions of the purpose and scope of the federal government. The NSF was certainly not the government agency for the funding of basic science. By 1950, support for areas of research had already become dominated by specialized agencies such as the National Institutes of Health
22.
Tohono O'odham
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The Tohono O’odham are a Native American people of the Sonoran Desert, residing primarily in the U. S. state of Arizona and the Mexican state of Sonora. The federally recognized tribe is known as the Tohono Oodham Nation, the Tohono O’odham have rejected the former name Papago, used by Europeans after being adopted by Spanish conquistadores from hearing other Piman bands call them this. The Pima were competitors and referred to the people as Ba, bawĭkoʼa and that word was pronounced papago by the Spanish and adopted by later English speakers. The Tohono Oodham Nation, or Tohono Oodham Indian Reservation, is a reservation located in southern Arizona, encompassing portions of Pima County, Pinal County. The Tohono O’odham share linguistic and cultural roots with the closely related Akimel Oodham, whose lands lie just south of present-day Phoenix, the Sobaipuri are ancestors to both the Tohono O’odham and the Akimel O’odham, and they resided along the major rivers of southern Arizona. Ancient pictographs adorn a rock wall that juts up out of the desert near the Baboquivari Mountains, debates surround the origins of the O’odham. Claims that the O’odham moved north as recently as 300 years ago compete with claims that the Hohokam, recent research on the Sobaipuri, the now extinct relatives of the Oodham, shows that they were present in sizable numbers in the southern Arizona river valleys in the fifteenth century. In the Santa Barbara Mission Archive-Library are materials collected by a Franciscan friar who worked among the Tohono Oodham and these include scholarly volumes and monographs. Historically, the Oodham-speaking peoples were at odds with the nomadic Apache from the seventeenth until the beginning of the twentieth centuries. The Oodham were an agricultural people who raised crops. According to their history, the Apache would raid when they ran short on food, conflict with European settlers encroaching on their lands resulted in the Oodham and the Apache finding common interests. The Oodham word for the Apache enemy is ob, the relationship between the Oodham and Apache was especially strained after 92 Oodham joined the Mexicans and Anglo-Americans and killed close to 144 Apaches during the Camp Grant massacre in 1871. All but eight of the dead were women and children,29 children were captured, considerable evidence suggests that the Oodham and Apache were friendly and engaged in exchange of goods and marriage partners before the late seventeenth century. Oodham oral history, however, suggests that intermarriages resulted from raiding between the two tribes and it was typical for women and children to be taken captive in raids, to be used as slaves by the victors. Often women married into the tribe in which they were held captive, both tribes thus incorporated enemies and their children into their cultures. Oodham musical and dance activities lack grand ritual paraphernalia that call for attention, instead, they wear muted white clay. Oodham songs are accompanied by hard wood rasps and drumming on overturned baskets, dancing features skipping and shuffling quietly in bare feet on dry dirt, the dust raised being believed to rise to atmosphere and assist in forming rain clouds. The original Oodham diet consisted of regionally available wild game, insects, through foraging, Oodham ate a variety of regional plants, such as, ironwood seed, honey mesquite, hog potato, and organ-pipe cactus fruit
23.
Nicholas Mayall
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Nicholas Ulrich Mayall was an American observational astronomer. During his time at Lick, Mayall contributed to knowledge of nebulae, supernovae, spiral galaxy internal motions, the redshifts of galaxies, and the origin, age. He played a significant role in the planning and construction of Licks 120-inch reflector, from 1960, Mayall spent 11 years as director of the Kitt Peak National Observatory until his retirement in 1971. Under his leadership KPNO, and the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, Mayall was responsible for the construction of the 4-meter Kitt Peak reflector, which was named after him. When Mayall died in 1993, his ashes were spread high on an empty ridge of Kitt Peak, Mayalls father, Edwin L. Mayall, Sr. was an engineer for a manufacturing company in Illinois. His mother, Olive Ulrich Mayall, despite never attending college herself, set high standards for Mayall. Sometime between his brothers birth and 1913, the moved to Californias Modesto area, where Mayall entered first grade. Some time before 1917, they moved again, to Stockton where they remained until 1924, during this period, presumably during his high school years, Mayalls parents divorced. During his senior year, in the fall of 1923, Mayall was secretary of the science club. His father permitted him to use his car, a Moline Knight, to transport the club members up the dirt and this was Mayalls first visit to the observatory where he would spend much of his career. After visiting, he read all the books available in the local libraries. Mayall began college in the fall of 1924 at the University of California, Berkeley and he took up residence with his mother in an apartment on Durant Avenue, and worked at the UC Berkeley library to help support them both. Mayall generally did well at university, and was elected to the Sigma Xi. However, at mid-term examinations of his year, he achieved poor grades in mineralogy. Mayalls adviser recommended that he change his major, as he would not be able to graduate as an engineer with such a handicap. Mayalls mother encouraged him to study whatever interested him the most and this did not set him back in his degree requirements because almost all of his first year studies had been in basic physical sciences and mathematics. Eventually Mayall discovered that he greatly enjoyed astronomy, and decided upon a course of graduate level study followed by a career as a research scientist, after graduating in 1928, Mayall decided to remain at Berkeley, as it had the best astronomy graduate program of the day. His thesis topic, suggested by Hubble, was to count the number of galaxies per unit area on the sky as a function of position on direct plates taken with the Crossley reflector at Lick
24.
National Solar Observatory
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The US National Solar Observatory carries out research into the Sun as an astronomical object and as the dominant external influence on Earth. It provides its observations to the scientific community and it operates facilities, develops advanced instrumentation both in-house and through partnerships, conducts solar research, and carries out educational and public outreach. The NSO operates facilities at two locations, at Sacramento Peak near Sunspot in New Mexico, and at Kitt Peak in Arizona, a major feature of the Richard B. Dunn Solar Telescope at Sacramento Peak is a de-rotated 100 meter vacuum column, the National Solar Observatory at Sacramento Peak welcomes visitors during the daytime. There is a separate, nighttime observatory, Apache Point Observatory, Sunspot is an unincorporated community in the Sacramento Mountains in Otero County. The National Solar Observatory in Arizona is located in Tucson and at Kitt Peak, allow 90 minutes of drive time from Tucson. The sites name was chosen by the late James C, sadler, an internationally noted meteorologist and professor at The University of Hawaii, formerly with the United States Air Force on assignment during the early inception of the observatory. Scientists spot tsunami on the sun, liebowitz, R. P. Donald Menzel and the creation of the Sacramento Peak Observatory. Journal for the History of Astronomy, official website Media related to National Solar Observatory at Wikimedia Commons
25.
New Mexico
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New Mexico is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States of America. It was admitted to the Union as the 47th state on January 6,1912 and it is usually considered one of the Mountain States. New Mexico is fifth by area, the 36th-most populous, inhabited by Native Americans for thousands of years before European exploration, New Mexico was colonized by the Spanish in 1598 Imperial Spanish viceroyalty of New Spain. Later, it was part of independent Mexico before becoming a U. S. territory and eventually a U. S. state as a result of the Mexican–American War. Among U. S. states, New Mexico has the highest percentage of Hispanics, the major Native American nations in the state are Navajo, Pueblo, and Apache peoples. The demography and culture of the state are shaped by these strong Hispanic and Native American influences and its scarlet and gold colors are taken from the royal standards of Spain, along with the ancient sun symbol of the Zia, a Pueblo-related tribe. New Mexico, or Nuevo México in Spanish, is incorrectly believed to have taken its name from the nation of Mexico. The name simply stuck, even though the area had no connection to Mexico or the Mexica Indian tribes, Mexico, formerly a part of New Spain, adopted its name centuries later in 1821, after winning independence from Spanish rule. New Mexico was a part of the independent Mexican Empire and Federal Republic of Mexico for 27 years,1821 through 1848, New Mexico and Mexico developed as neighboring Spanish-speaking communities under Spanish rule, with relatively independent histories. The states total area is 121,412 square miles, the eastern border of New Mexico lies along 103° W longitude with the state of Oklahoma, and 2.2 miles west of 103° W longitude with Texas. On the southern border, Texas makes up the eastern two-thirds, while the Mexican states of Chihuahua and Sonora make up the western third, the western border with Arizona runs along the 109°03 W longitude. The southwestern corner of the state is known as the Bootheel, the 37° N latitude parallel forms the northern boundary with Colorado. The states New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona, and Utah come together at the Four Corners in the corner of New Mexico. New Mexico, although a state, has very little water. Its surface water area is about 250 square miles, the New Mexican landscape ranges from wide, rose-colored deserts to broken mesas to high, snow-capped peaks. Despite New Mexicos arid image, heavily forested mountain wildernesses cover a significant portion of the state, the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, the southernmost part of the Rocky Mountains, run roughly north-south along the east side of the Rio Grande in the rugged, pastoral north. The most important of New Mexicos rivers are the Rio Grande, Pecos, Canadian, San Juan, the Rio Grande is tied for the fourth-longest river in the United States. Tourists visiting these sites bring significant money to the state, other areas of geographical and scenic interest include Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument and the Gila Wilderness in the southwest of the state
26.
Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory
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It is within the Coquimbo Region and approximately 80 kilometres east of La Serena, where support facilities are located. The site was identified by a team of scientists from Chile and the United States in 1959, construction began in 1963 and regular astronomical observations commenced in 1965. Construction of large buildings on Cerro Tololo ended with the completion of the Víctor Blanco Telescope in 1974, Cerro Pachón is still under development, with two large telescopes inaugurated since 2000, and one in the early stages of construction. Other telescopes on Cerro Tololo include the 1.5 m,1.3 m,1.0 m, and 0.9 m telescopes operated by the SMARTS consortium. CTIO also hosts other research projects, such as PROMPT, WHAM, CTIO is one of two observatories managed by the National Optical Astronomy Observatory, the other being Kitt Peak National Observatory near Tucson, Arizona. NOAO is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, AURA also operates the Space Telescope Science Institute and the Gemini Observatory. The 8.1 m Gemini South Telescope located on Cerro Pachón is managed by AURA separately from CTIO for an international consortium, the National Science Foundation is the funding agency for NOAO. The Small and Medium Research Telescope System is a consortium formed in 2001 after NOAO announced it would no longer support anything smaller than two meters at CTIO, the member institutions of SMARTS now fund and manage observing time on four telescopes that fit that definition. Access has also purchased by individual scientists. SMARTS contracts with NOAO to maintain the telescopes it controls at CTIO, and NOAO retains the right to 25% of the observing time, SMARTS began managing telescopes in 2003. CTIOPI is the Cerro Tololo Interamerican Observatory Parallax Investigation and it began in 1999 and uses two telescopes at Cerro Tololo, the SMARTS1.5 m reflector and the SMARTS0.9 m reflector. The purpose of CTIOPI is to discover nearby red, white, the goal is to discover 300 new southern star systems within 25 parsecs by determining trigonometric parallaxes accurate to 3 milliarcseconds. The 4.0 m Victor M. Blanco Telescope was completed in 1974 and is similar to the Nicholas U. Mayall Telescope which was completed at KPNO in 1973, testing of the telescope and instruments lasted until the beginning of 1976 when science operations began. Regular observations began in 1968. 30°10′09. 42″S 70°48′24. 44″W The 1.3 m SMARTS1. 3-meter Telescope is a Cassegrain reflector on an equatorial mount and it was built by M3 Engineering and Technology Corporation and used for the 2-micron All-Sky Survey. It was first installed in 1965 at the Bethany Observing Station of the Yale University Observatory and it was moved to CTIO in 1974. From 1998 to 2002, it was used by the Yale University-AURA-University of Lisbon-Ohio State University consortium with a custom-built sensor, in 2004 it was integrated into SMARTS. 30°10′07. 92″S 70°48′21. 83″W The 0.9 m SMARTS0. 9-meter Telescope is a closed-tube Cassegrain reflector. It was installed at CTIO in 1966. 30°10′07. 90″S 70°48′23. 86″W The 0.6 m Southeastern Association for Research in Astronomy South Telescope is a telescope built by Boller
27.
Chile
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Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a South American country occupying a long, narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, Chilean territory includes the Pacific islands of Juan Fernández, Salas y Gómez, Desventuradas, and Easter Island in Oceania. Chile also claims about 1,250,000 square kilometres of Antarctica, the arid Atacama Desert in northern Chile contains great mineral wealth, principally copper. Southern Chile is rich in forests and grazing lands, and features a string of volcanoes and lakes, the southern coast is a labyrinth of fjords, inlets, canals, twisting peninsulas, and islands. Spain conquered and colonized Chile in the century, replacing Inca rule in northern and central Chile. After declaring its independence from Spain in 1818, Chile emerged in the 1830s as a relatively stable authoritarian republic, in the 1960s and 1970s the country experienced severe left-right political polarization and turmoil. The regime, headed by Augusto Pinochet, ended in 1990 after it lost a referendum in 1988 and was succeeded by a coalition which ruled through four presidencies until 2010. Chile is today one of South Americas most stable and prosperous nations and it leads Latin American nations in rankings of human development, competitiveness, income per capita, globalization, state of peace, economic freedom, and low perception of corruption. It also ranks high regionally in sustainability of the state, Chile is a founding member of the United Nations, the Union of South American Nations and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States. There are various theories about the origin of the word Chile, another theory points to the similarity of the valley of the Aconcagua with that of the Casma Valley in Peru, where there was a town and valley named Chili. Another origin attributed to chilli is the onomatopoeic cheele-cheele—the Mapuche imitation of the warble of a locally known as trile. The Spanish conquistadors heard about this name from the Incas, ultimately, Almagro is credited with the universalization of the name Chile, after naming the Mapocho valley as such. The older spelling Chili was in use in English until at least 1900 before switching over to Chile, stone tool evidence indicates humans sporadically frequented the Monte Verde valley area as long as 18,500 years ago. About 10,000 years ago, migrating Native Americans settled in fertile valleys, settlement sites from very early human habitation include Monte Verde, Cueva del Milodon and the Pali Aike Craters lava tube. They fought against the Sapa Inca Tupac Yupanqui and his army, the result of the bloody three-day confrontation known as the Battle of the Maule was that the Inca conquest of the territories of Chile ended at the Maule river. The next Europeans to reach Chile were Diego de Almagro and his band of Spanish conquistadors, the Spanish encountered various cultures that supported themselves principally through slash-and-burn agriculture and hunting. The conquest of Chile began in earnest in 1540 and was carried out by Pedro de Valdivia, one of Francisco Pizarros lieutenants, who founded the city of Santiago on 12 February 1541. Although the Spanish did not find the gold and silver they sought, they recognized the agricultural potential of Chiles central valley
28.
Solar telescope
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A solar telescope is a special purpose telescope used to observe the Sun. Solar telescopes usually detect light with wavelengths in, or not far outside, obsolete names for sun telescopes include heliograph and photoheliograph. Solar telescopes need optics large enough to achieve the best possible diffraction limit, however, recently newer narrower filters and higher framerates have also driven solar telescopes towards photon-starved operations. Both the European Solar Telescope as well as the Advanced Technology Solar Telescope have larger apertures not only to increase the resolution, to alleviate this, solar telescopes are usually built on towers and the structures are painted white. The Dutch Open Telescope is built on a framework to allow the wind to pass through the complete structure. Another solar telescope-specific problem is the heat generated by the tightly-focused sunlight, for this reason, a heat stop is an integral part of the design of solar telescopes. For the upcoming ATST, the load is 2.5 MW/m2. The goal of such a stop is not only to survive this heat load. However, this is not possible for apertures over 1 meter, therefore, the EST and ATST have active cooling of the dome to minimize the temperature difference between the air inside and outside the telescope. Because the Sun travels on a fixed path across the sky, some solar telescopes are fixed in position. One example of this is the McMath-Pierce Solar Telescope, the Einstein Tower became operational in 1924 McMath-Pierce Solar Telescope McMath-Hulbert Observatory Swedish Vacuum Solar Telescope Swedish 1-m Solar Telescope Richard B. Advanced Technology Solar Telescope, a telescope with 4m aperture. European Solar Telescope, a future 4-meter class aperture telescope, national Large Solar Telescope, is a Gregorian multi-purpose open telescope proposed to be built and Installed in India and aims to study the suns microscopic structure. The Radio Solar Telescope Network is a network of solar observatories maintained and operated by the U. S. Air Force Weather Agency. CERN Axion Solar Telescope, looks for solar axions in the early 2000s In the field of astronomy there are many methods used to observe the sun. In contrast to professional telescopes, amateur solar telescopes are much smaller. List of solar telescopes List of telescope types Heliostat Solar telescopes, Wolfgang Schmidt, doi,10. 4249/scholarpedia.4333 CSIRO Solar Heliograph part 2 Solar Gallery of an amateur astronomer Solar Gallery of the Hong Kong Astronomical Society Lawrence, Pete
29.
Near-Earth object
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A near-Earth object is any small Solar System body whose orbit brings it into proximity with Earth. By definition, a solar system body is a NEO if its closest approach to the Sun is less than 1.3 astronomical unit and it is now widely accepted that collisions in the past have had a significant role in shaping the geological and biological history of the Earth. NEOs have become of increased interest since the 1980s because of increased awareness of the potential danger some of the asteroids or comets pose, and mitigations are being researched. In January 2016, NASA announced the Planetary Defense Coordination Office to track NEOs larger than 30 to 50 meters in diameter and coordinate an effective threat response, NEAs have orbits that lie partly between 0.983 and 1.3 AU away from the Sun. When a NEA is detected it is submitted to the IAUs Minor Planet Center for cataloging, some NEAs orbits intersect that of Earths so they pose a collision danger. The United States, European Union, and other nations are currently scanning for NEOs in an effort called Spaceguard. In the United States and since 1998, NASA has a mandate to catalogue all NEOs that are at least 1 kilometer wide. In 2006, it was estimated that 20% of the objects had not yet been found. In 2011, largely as a result of NEOWISE, it was estimated that 93% of the NEAs larger than 1 km had been found, as of 5 February 2017, there have been 875 NEAs larger than 1 km discovered, of which 157 are potentially hazardous. The inventory is much less complete for smaller objects, which still have potential for scale, though not global. Potentially hazardous objects are defined based on parameters that measure the objects potential to make threatening close approaches to the Earth. Mostly objects with an Earth minimum orbit intersection distance of 0.05 AU or less, objects that cannot approach closer to the Earth than 0.05 AU, or are smaller than about 150 m in diameter, are not considered PHOs. This makes them a target for exploration. As of 2016, three near-Earth objects have been visited by spacecraft, more recently, a typical frame of reference for looking at NEOs has been through the scientific concept of risk. In this frame, the risk that any near-Earth object poses is typically seen through a lens that is a function of both the culture and the technology of human society, NEOs have been understood differently throughout history. Each time an NEO is observed, a different risk was posed and it is not just a matter of scientific knowledge. Such perception of risk is thus a product of religious belief, philosophic principles, scientific understanding, technological capabilities, and even economical resourcefulness.03 E −0.4 megatonnes. For instance, it gives the rate for bolides of 10 megatonnes or more as 1 per thousand years, however, the authors give a rather large uncertainty, due in part to uncertainties in determining the energies of the atmospheric impacts that they used in their determination
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Earth
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Earth, otherwise known as the World, or the Globe, is the third planet from the Sun and the only object in the Universe known to harbor life. It is the densest planet in the Solar System and the largest of the four terrestrial planets, according to radiometric dating and other sources of evidence, Earth formed about 4.54 billion years ago. Earths gravity interacts with objects in space, especially the Sun. During one orbit around the Sun, Earth rotates about its axis over 365 times, thus, Earths axis of rotation is tilted, producing seasonal variations on the planets surface. The gravitational interaction between the Earth and Moon causes ocean tides, stabilizes the Earths orientation on its axis, Earths lithosphere is divided into several rigid tectonic plates that migrate across the surface over periods of many millions of years. About 71% of Earths surface is covered with water, mostly by its oceans, the remaining 29% is land consisting of continents and islands that together have many lakes, rivers and other sources of water that contribute to the hydrosphere. The majority of Earths polar regions are covered in ice, including the Antarctic ice sheet, Earths interior remains active with a solid iron inner core, a liquid outer core that generates the Earths magnetic field, and a convecting mantle that drives plate tectonics. Within the first billion years of Earths history, life appeared in the oceans and began to affect the Earths atmosphere and surface, some geological evidence indicates that life may have arisen as much as 4.1 billion years ago. Since then, the combination of Earths distance from the Sun, physical properties, in the history of the Earth, biodiversity has gone through long periods of expansion, occasionally punctuated by mass extinction events. Over 99% of all species that lived on Earth are extinct. Estimates of the number of species on Earth today vary widely, over 7.4 billion humans live on Earth and depend on its biosphere and minerals for their survival. Humans have developed diverse societies and cultures, politically, the world has about 200 sovereign states, the modern English word Earth developed from a wide variety of Middle English forms, which derived from an Old English noun most often spelled eorðe. It has cognates in every Germanic language, and their proto-Germanic root has been reconstructed as *erþō, originally, earth was written in lowercase, and from early Middle English, its definite sense as the globe was expressed as the earth. By early Modern English, many nouns were capitalized, and the became the Earth. More recently, the name is simply given as Earth. House styles now vary, Oxford spelling recognizes the lowercase form as the most common, another convention capitalizes Earth when appearing as a name but writes it in lowercase when preceded by the. It almost always appears in lowercase in colloquial expressions such as what on earth are you doing, the oldest material found in the Solar System is dated to 4. 5672±0.0006 billion years ago. By 4. 54±0.04 Gya the primordial Earth had formed, the formation and evolution of Solar System bodies occurred along with the Sun
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Digital single-lens reflex camera
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A digital single-lens reflex camera is a digital camera that combines the optics and the mechanisms of a single-lens reflex camera with a digital imaging sensor, as opposed to photographic film. The reflex design scheme is the difference between a DSLR and other digital cameras. In the reflex design, light travels through the lens, then to a mirror that alternates to send the image to either the viewfinder or the image sensor, the alternative would be to have a viewfinder with its own lens, hence the term single lens for this design. By using only one lens, the viewfinder of a DSLR presents an image that will not perceptibly differ from what is captured by the cameras sensor, like SLRs DSLRs typically use interchangeable lenses with a proprietary lens mount. A movable mechanical mirror system is switched down to light from the lens over a matte focusing screen via a condenser lens. Most of the entry-level DSLRs use a instead of the traditional pentaprism. Focusing can be manual or automatic, activated by pressing half-way on the release or a dedicated AF button. DSLRs typically use autofocus based on phase detection and this method allows the optimal lens position to be calculated, rather than found, as would be the case with autofocus based on contrast maximisation. Phase-detection autofocus is typically faster than other passive techniques, as the phase sensor requires the same light going to the image sensor, it was previously only possible with an SLR design. Digital SLR cameras, along with most other cameras, generally have a mode dial to access standard camera settings or automatic scene-mode settings. Sometimes called a PASM dial, they typically provide such as program, aperture-priority, shutter-priority. Scene modes vary from camera to camera, and these modes are inherently less customizable and they often include landscape, portrait, action, macro, night, and silhouette, among others. However, these different settings and shooting styles that scene mode provides can be achieved by calibrating certain settings on the camera, professional DSLRs seldom contain automatic scene modes as professionals often do not require these and professionals know how to achieve the looks they want. A method to prevent dust entering the chamber, by using a dust cover filter right behind the mount, was used by Sigma in its first DSLR. Olympus used a built-in sensor cleaning mechanism in its first DSLR that had a sensor exposed to air, several Canon DSLR cameras rely on dust reduction systems based on vibrating the sensor at ultrasonic frequencies to remove dust from the sensor. Interchangeable lenses for SLRs and DSLRs are built to operate correctly with a lens mount that is generally unique to each brand. There are also lens adapters that allow a lens for one mount to be used on a camera body with a different lens mount. Many lenses are mountable, diaphragm-and-meter-compatible, on modern DSLRs and on older film SLRs that use the lens mount
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Charge-coupled device
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A charge-coupled device is a device for the movement of electrical charge, usually from within the device to an area where the charge can be manipulated, for example conversion into a digital value. This is achieved by shifting the signals between stages within the one at a time. CCDs move charge between capacitive bins in the device, with the shift allowing for the transfer of charge between bins, in recent years CCD has become a major technology for digital imaging. In a CCD image sensor, pixels are represented by p-doped metal-oxide-semiconductors capacitors, the charge-coupled device was invented in 1969 at AT&T Bell Labs by Willard Boyle and George E. Smith. The lab was working on bubble memory when Boyle and Smith conceived of the design of what they termed, in their notebook. The device could be used as a shift register, the essence of the design was the ability to transfer charge along the surface of a semiconductor from one storage capacitor to the next. The concept was similar in principle to the device, which was developed at Philips Research Labs during the late 1960s. The first patent on the application of CCDs to imaging was assigned to Michael Tompsett, the initial paper describing the concept listed possible uses as a memory, a delay line, and an imaging device. The first experimental device demonstrating the principle was a row of closely spaced metal squares on a silicon surface electrically accessed by wire bonds. The first working CCD made with integrated circuit technology was a simple 8-bit shift register and this device had input and output circuits and was used to demonstrate its use as a shift register and as a crude eight pixel linear imaging device. Development of the device progressed at a rapid rate, by 1971, Bell researchers led by Michael Tompsett were able to capture images with simple linear devices. Several companies, including Fairchild Semiconductor, RCA and Texas Instruments, picked up on the invention, fairchilds effort, led by ex-Bell researcher Gil Amelio, was the first with commercial devices, and by 1974 had a linear 500-element device and a 2-D100 x 100 pixel device. Steven Sasson, an engineer working for Kodak, invented the first digital still camera using a Fairchild 100 x 100 CCD in 1975. The first KH-11 KENNAN reconnaissance satellite equipped with charge-coupled device array technology for imaging was launched in December 1976, under the leadership of Kazuo Iwama, Sony also started a large development effort on CCDs involving a significant investment. Eventually, Sony managed to mass-produce CCDs for their camcorders, before this happened, Iwama died in August 1982, subsequently, a CCD chip was placed on his tombstone to acknowledge his contribution. He was also awarded the 2012 IEEE Edison Medal For pioneering contributions to imaging devices including CCD Imagers, cameras, in a CCD for capturing images, there is a photoactive region, and a transmission region made out of a shift register. An image is projected through a lens onto the capacitor array, once the array has been exposed to the image, a control circuit causes each capacitor to transfer its contents to its neighbor. The last capacitor in the array dumps its charge into a charge amplifier, by repeating this process, the controlling circuit converts the entire contents of the array in the semiconductor to a sequence of voltages
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Precipitation
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In meteorology, precipitation is any product of the condensation of atmospheric water vapor that falls under gravity. The main forms of precipitation include drizzle, rain, sleet, snow, graupel, Precipitation occurs when a portion of the atmosphere becomes saturated with water vapor, so that the water condenses and precipitates. Thus, fog and mist are not precipitation but suspensions, because the vapor does not condense sufficiently to precipitate. Two processes, possibly acting together, can lead to air becoming saturated, Precipitation forms as smaller droplets coalesce via collision with other rain drops or ice crystals within a cloud. Short, intense periods of rain in scattered locations are called showers, moisture that is lifted or otherwise forced to rise over a layer of sub-freezing air at the surface may be condensed into clouds and rain. This process is active when freezing rain is occurring. A stationary front is often present near the area of freezing rain, provided necessary and sufficient atmospheric moisture content, the moisture within the rising air will condense into clouds, namely stratus and cumulonimbus. Eventually, the droplets will grow large enough to form raindrops. Lake-effect snowfall can be locally heavy, thundersnow is possible within a cyclones comma head and within lake effect precipitation bands. In mountainous areas, heavy precipitation is possible where upslope flow is maximized within windward sides of the terrain at elevation, on the leeward side of mountains, desert climates can exist due to the dry air caused by compressional heating. The movement of the trough, or intertropical convergence zone. Precipitation is a component of the water cycle, and is responsible for depositing the fresh water on the planet. Approximately 505,000 cubic kilometres of water falls as precipitation each year,398,000 cubic kilometres of it over the oceans and 107,000 cubic kilometres over land. Given the Earths surface area, that means the globally averaged annual precipitation is 990 millimetres, Climate classification systems such as the Köppen climate classification system use average annual rainfall to help differentiate between differing climate regimes. Precipitation may occur on celestial bodies, e. g. when it gets cold, Mars has precipitation which most likely takes the form of frost. Precipitation is a component of the water cycle, and is responsible for depositing most of the fresh water on the planet. Approximately 505,000 km3 of water falls as precipitation each year,398,000 km3 of it over the oceans, given the Earths surface area, that means the globally averaged annual precipitation is 990 millimetres. Mechanisms of producing precipitation include convective, stratiform, and orographic rainfall, Precipitation can be divided into three categories, based on whether it falls as liquid water, liquid water that freezes on contact with the surface, or ice
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Virtual International Authority File
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The Virtual International Authority File is an international authority file. It is a joint project of national libraries and operated by the Online Computer Library Center. The project was initiated by the US Library of Congress, the German National Library, the National Library of France joined the project on October 5,2007. The project transitions to a service of the OCLC on April 4,2012, the aim is to link the national authority files to a single virtual authority file. In this file, identical records from the different data sets are linked together, a VIAF record receives a standard data number, contains the primary see and see also records from the original records, and refers to the original authority records. The data are available online and are available for research and data exchange. Reciprocal updating uses the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting protocol, the file numbers are also being added to Wikipedia biographical articles and are incorporated into Wikidata. VIAFs clustering algorithm is run every month, as more data are added from participating libraries, clusters of authority records may coalesce or split, leading to some fluctuation in the VIAF identifier of certain authority records
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