On 10 November 2006, my wife Laurraine and I had a “once in a lifetime” opportunity (for the third time!) to visit and look through the WIYN 3.5 meter telescope (yes, a 138 inch aperture telescope!) at Kitt Peak National Observatory. WIYN = Wisconsin Indiana Yale NOAO; NOAO = National Optical Astronomy Observatory. As before, my alma mater, Indiana University, hosted the event. We looked at many objects: Uranus, Neptune, M2 Globular Cluster, M57 Ring Nebula, M27 Dumbbell Nebula, NGC7662 Blue Snowball, NGC7479 Barred Spiral Galaxy, M32 Elliptical Galaxy (companion to M31 Andromeda Galaxy), M74 Spiral Galaxy, and NGC891 Edge-on Galaxy. All of these objects were impressive through such a large telescope. You can see some photographs of our visit below; click on the thumbnail to see larger image or click the “Start Slideshow button above. Some images of note: the angular-shaped observatory is WIYN. DSC_3522 shows the shadow of Kitt Peak mountain at sunset. DSC3546 was taken inside the dark observatory and is a 30 second exposure. Through the roof opening you can see the W-shaped (“W” for “Weasner”, of course...) star pattern of the constellation Cassiopeia.
You can see photographs of our previous two visits to Kitt Peak at:
For a complete listing of observatories visited, go to our Observatories page.
