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Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO), part of the National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO), supports the most diverse collection of astronomical observatories on Earth for nighttime optical and infrared astronomy and daytime study of the Sun. Sharing the mountaintop site with the National Solar Observatory, KPNO, founded in 1958, operates three major nighttime telescopes and hosts the facilities of consortia which operate 19 optical telescopes and two radio telescopes. (See the Tenant Observatories list.) Kitt Peak is located 56 miles southwest of Tucson, AZ, in the Schuk Toak District on the Tohono O'odham Nation and has a Visitor Center open daily to the public.

If you need to contact someone at NOAO but are uncertain of that person's email address, simply send email to "first_inital_last_name@noao.edu", i.e., bsmith@noao.edu or jdoe@noao.edu. A general purpose email account has been set up to answer any questions you have about observing at Kitt Peak and don't know who to ask. Any and all questions you have can be e-mailed to this address: kpno@noao.edu and it will be forwarded to the appropriate person.

Image credit: T.A. Rector/University of Alaska Anchorage and NOAO/AURA/NSF (for details see Conditions of Use)

The Medusa nebula, known scientifically as Abell 21, is an old planetary nebula some 1,500 light-years away in the constellation Gemini. It is estimated to be over 4 light-years across. This image was taken on Oct 24th, 2008 at the Mayall telescope with the mosaic camera, with [OIII] (assigned a blue color) and H-alpha (orange) filters.

This image was released during the 100 Hours of Astronomy webcast, "Around the World in 80 Telescopes" held from April 3-4, 2009, during the International Year of Astronomy 2009. View the recorded event from KPNO. See also this image of NGC 6520 from CTIO, which was also released during the webcast.

Link to previous homepage images.subscribe

Information on our 50th celebrations

Click on the photo for a live [almost] daytime image from the summit.