KITT PEAK NATIONAL OBSERVATORY

The Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO) is a United States astronomical observatory located on 2,096 m (6,880 ft) Kitt Peak of the Quinlan Mountains in the Arizona-Sonoran Desert on the Tohono O'odham Nation, 88 kilometers (55 mi) southwest of Tucson. The observatory is considered to be part of the National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO), although some of the telescopes located here belong to other groups.

Some examples of this include the MDM Observatory which is owned and operated by the University of Michigan, Dartmouth College, Ohio State University, Columbia University, and Ohio University and the Burrell Schmidt telescope at the Warner and Swasey Observatory which belongs toCase Western Reserve University. With 26 independent telescopes, it is the largest, most diverse gathering of astronomical instruments in the world.

 Its largest telescope is the 4-m Mayall Telescope, opened in 1973. The 3.5-m WIYN Telescope was opened in 1994. Other KNPO instruments are a 2.1-m reflector for optical and infrared observations, opened in 1964, and a 0.9-m reflector opened in 1960 but operated by the WIYN consortium since 2001. Also on Kitt Peak are two telescopes of the National Solar Observatory, originally the solar division of KPNO but which became a separate organization in 1984: the McMath–Pierce Solar Telescope and the Solar Vacuum Tower. Telescopes owned by other institutions are also sited at  Kitt Peak National Observatory. These include the 1.3-m Robotically Controlled Telescope (RCT), a KPNO telescope from 1965 to 1995 but subsequently transferred to the RCT Consortium of five institutions and reopened in 2003; a 1.2-m reflector of the privately owned Calypso Observatory, opened in 1999; a 0.9-m reflector which was a KPNO telescope from 1966 to 1990 but was then transferred to the Southeastern Association for Research in Astronomy (SARA) consortium and reopened in 1995; the 0.6-m Wisconsin H-Alpha Mapper (WHAM) telescope, opened 1996; and the 0.6-m Burrell Schmidt of Case Western Reserve University, Ohio (originally opened in 1946 and moved to Kitt Peak in 1979); and a 25-m dish of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory's VLBA network. The University of Arizona's Steward Observatory and the MDM Observatory are also sited on Kitt Peak but they are not part of Kitt Peak National Observatory..