Sacramento Peak Observatory
A facility of the National Solar Observatory
(NSO), located 2,800 meters up in the Lincoln National Forest of the Sacramento
Mountains, near Sunspot (65 km southeast of Alamogordo), New Mexico. Its
largest instrument is the Richard B. Dunn Solar Telescope, a vacuum tower
telescope, 108.5 m high – only the top 41.5 m of which rises above
ground level – with a 0.76-m entrance window and a 1.6-m main mirror.
Other instruments include the John W. Evans Solar Facility, equipped with
a 0.4-m coronagraph and a 0.3-m coelostat,
and the Hilltop Dome Facility, which operates a number of solar patrol cameras
and test cameras. The Observatory was founded in 1949 by the U.S. Air Force
Cambridge Research Laboratories and became part of the NSO when that body
was founded in 1984.
Related category
• OBSERVATORIES
AND TELESCOPES
Also on this site:
Encyclopedia
of Alternative Energy & Sustainable Living
Encyclopedia
of History
BACK TO TOP
|
