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 22 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_at_noao.edu", i.e.,
bsmith_at_noao.edu or jdoe_at_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_at_noao.edu and it will be forwarded to the appropriate person.
The Cone Nebula
Image Credit: Roy Lorenz, Kitt Peak Visitor Center Staff
The Cone Nebula is part of the much larger Christmas Tree Cluster, NGC2264, in the constellation Monoceros, The Unicorn. It is an emission nebula, a region of hygrogen gas (the red color) and dust, where active star formation is occurring. The Cone suggests the appearance of a christmas tree decoration located at the top of the tree-shaped cluster. With an approximate diameter of 20 light years the Cone is located at a distance of about 3000 light years from Earth. This image was taken at Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona on January 18, 2012 using an SBIG STL-6303E ccd camera mounted on the Kitt Peak Visitor Center's 20-inch, f/8.1, RCOS Ritchey-Chretien telescope on a Paramount ME equatorial mount. A total of 24 exposures, 300 seconds each, were taken through four separate Astrodon filters (H-alpha, R, G, and B), binned at 2x2 resolution. Camera control/initial image acquisition/processing with Maxim DL5 Pro, and final image processing using CCD Stack and Adobe Photoshop CS2 software.
