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Kitt Peak and the Sonoran Desert

with David Lee

A beautiful drive up a windy mountain road we see the first telescopes of Kitt Peak appear on the mountain top.

Abstract

In the summer of 2018 just before retiring, I travelled south to Tucson, Arizona. I went to visit not one observatory but twenty-four research grade telescopes on a mountain in the Sonoran Desert. Built in the 1960's it was filled with technological nostalgia and a sense of history that includes the site where Vera Rubin initially explored what we now call dark matter. The site today continues to evolve with projects exploring exoplanets and dark energy.

bio

David Lee is an avid photographer who over 20 years ago turned his camera upwards to the sky capturing astronomical images of the solar system and beyond. Through the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada he has been an advocate of astronomy and the sciences through its public outreach programs. After retiring from the Information Technology sector he is becoming even more of a tourist of the night sky.

The McMath-Pierce Telescope at Kitt Peak was built in 1962 and at the time was the biggest solar telescope in the world.

Located just before the Kitt Peak Visitors Center is a dummy mirror blank painted by a local artist that was used for testing the Mayall telescope