Mt. Graham International Observatory (MGIO)
This image of the Mt. Graham night sky was taken from High Peak (the
10700-foot summit of Mt. Graham) in 1985 by Doug Officer and Paul Welch.
A special camera built by Roger Angel and personnel from the Steward
Observatory Mirror Lab combined a 16 mm Nikon fish-eye lens and a
120-format Hasselblad back. The 20 minute exposure at F/4 was with
Sakura 400 negative film hypersensitized by Lumicon. The camera
tracked the apparent rotation of the stars during the exposure, so the
silhouettes of the trees on the horizon are slightly blurred.
The summer Milky Way dominates the picture under this dark sky. The
yellow glows on the horizon to the West are the lights of Phoenix and
Tucson.
(Click on the image to see a larger 2000x2000 pixel version in a 1 MB
JPEG file.)
The original photo was scanned by Jacob Rigoli.
Copyright 1997, Steward Observatory, The University of Arizona.
The Mt. Graham International Observatory is located on Mt. Graham in the Pinaleno Mountains near Safford
, Arizona. The observatory site is operated by the University of Arizona. Mt.
Graham is part of the Coronado
National Forest . The construction of the Observatory was approved by Congress in November of 1988.
Two telescopes are now in operation, the Vatican Observatory/Arizona 1.8m Lennon
optical telescope (VATT) and the 10m
diameter Heinrich Hertz
Submillimeter
Telescope (SMT), a joint project of
Arizona and the Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie, Germany. The preliminary indications are that both the site and
the telescopes will reach highest expectations. The carbon fiber Hertz telescope is proving very
stable, and the surface adjustment has surpassed its goal of 15 microns rms. The
Lennon telescope with its f/1 primary figured to 17 nm rms is now in regular astronomical use.
The third and largest
telescope for Mt Graham is the 2 x 8.4 Large Binocular Telescope (LBT); it is a partnership between
Arizona, Ohio, Italy (Arcetri), Germany and the Research Corporation. The LBT
is now under construction and is expected to begin operation in 2002.
Created by:
Anna Rosa Lampis (
alampis@as.arizona.edu)
Maintained by:
John M. Hill (
jhill@as.arizona.edu)
http://medusa.as.arizona.edu/graham/
last revised October 11, 1999
