The road up the mountain from the desert floor is 11 miles of twisties and good fun although the tar snakes are multiplying. Back in 2004 a younger, more enthusiastic me on an Aprilia Caponord was hitting 110 mph on the short straights on the otherwise twisting road as I play raced with another rider on a BMW R1200GS. Sunday a mature me settled for 55 mph or so, still fast enough to pass a Harley and a Can Am Spyder but I never did see a straight stretch where I'd want to do 110 mph.
The 4.x meter Mather Telescope (L) is one of more than 2 dozen actual observatories on the mountain top.
The McMath-Pierce Solar Telescope in the background is impressive and even a little Sci-Fi looking.
Lots of interesting angles and views on the solar telescope. I'm thinking a 90° framing square wasn't much use in building the thing. My level of math skills would have been of even less use.
Someone left a door ajar inside the solar telescope's visitor room so I took the opportunity to get an unusual photo. The wind started to blow the door shut so I jumped back inside real quick. I could see them sparking up that big fella with me trapped in there and me getting blinded or French fried or something. I'm told the angular highlights on the wall are cooling tubes, the interior temp of the thing has to be controlled somewhat so the heat from the walls doesn't distort the incoming light of images to be captured.
The 25 meter span, 245 ton radio telescope is part of a ten telescope "Very Long Baseline Aray" that stretches from Hawaii to the Virgin Islands. Using fancy math the data represents the equivalent of a 5000' wide radio telescope. That kind of magnification, so the info placard said, would be enough to let you see from earth a football sitting on the surface of the moon.
A panorama shot of the valley below and south of Kitt Peak. Click to see the whole image, it's about 5000 pixels across. Stitched together and cropped from 6 seperate images.
Sadly, the observatory gift shop had only garish, glow in the dark t-shirts for sale this time so I came away with naught but photos and a pleasant 225 miles of riding.