Star Junkies
Southern Arizona is one big Galactic Star Party
By D.A. Barber

With Southern Arizona’s dry air, clear Sonoran Desert nights, low humidity, countless mountain ranges, and low light pollution, Tucson has gained the reputation as the “Astronomy Capital of the World.”

Ever since space buffs watched in awe as the Soviet’s Sputnik passed through the night sky in 1957, astronomy has increasingly become a popular hobby for even non-scientific geeks. That popularity spawned Astronomy Day (April 21) during National Dark-Sky Week, which occurs the week of new moon (April 17 to 24) as an event in which people in the United States are encouraged to turn out their unnecessary outdoor lights in order to temporarily reduce light pollution.

In the Old Pueblo, where astronomy is big business, maintaining the area as the center of the astronomy junkies’ universe has been made partly possible by street lighting ordinances passed in the early 1970s in Pima County and the City of Tucson to establish a “dark sky” policy. In 1958, the Flagstaff pioneered the world’s first lighting ordinance to preserve the night for astronomy. Later, in 1972, Tucson adopted Arizona’s second lighting ordinance, designed to protect the National Optical Astronomical Observatory on Kitt Peak. Pima County followed suit by passing a similar ordinance a few months later, requiring that light be directed downward. More recently, Tucson and Pima County updated their ordinances to ban mercury vapor streetlights and require lights to shine only in a part of the spectrum that is easily filtered out by telescopes.

It’s a good thing for area sky watchers since Pima County passed the one million population mark in November 2006. According to the Tucson-based International Dark Sky Association, today there are an estimated 1,000 cities and towns in the U.S. that have enacted some form of dark-sky ordinance.

Long before seafaring mariners were using the stars to circumnavigate the globe, ancient Native Americans, like the Anasazi, were aware of changes in the night sky and established sites for celestial observation and even record keeping. At many sites, petroglyphs depict the sun’s migration from south to north (winter solstice to summer solstice), ranging from simple stellar event pictographs, to solar calendars of uncanny accuracy. Such sites are found throughout the southwest, including the southern part of Arizona.

The Hohokam created whole structures that tracked the seasons. One of these, what early Spanish-explorers called Casa Grande (“Great House”), can be seen near Coolidge at Casa Grande Ruins. Completed prior to 1350, the “Great House” stood four stories high and 60 feet long, and is the largest structure known to exist from that era. Its walls face the four points of the compass and contain openings that align with the sun and moon at specific times, including the setting sun during the summer solstice. In ancient times, knowing the changing seasons meant knowing when to plant and harvest. In 1892, Casa Grande became the Nation’s first archeological preserve.

With scientific curiosity came a new interest in what the night sky holds. The result: Modern telescopes have been on the state’s mountain peaks for more than 100 years. It was here that Pluto was discovered in 1930 from Lowell Observatory, founded in 1894 in Flagstaff.

Today, it’s southern Arizona that boasts the first National Observatory, a state-of-the-art planetarium, and a University that is on the cutting-edge of all things cosmic. Major telescopes placed by the military, civilian agencies, even the Vatican, dot the surrounding mountain peaks.

The University of Arizona’s long history of contributing to optical and astronomical research, as well as its involvement with four area observatories nestled on various “sky islands” high above the Sonoran Desert, is a major driving factor for the area’s stellar reputation. And that reputation has drawn researchers from all over the world.

The UA Planetary Sciences Department, which had about 30 staff members and a budget of about $1 million in 1973, now has some 300 researchers and spends over $40 million annually on research. Economists use a multiplier of 2.4 for economic impact, making that $40 million in grants equal to about $90 million in economic impact.

It’s a far cry from the lone original observatory — Steward Observatory — built on the campus in 1923. Officially established in 1916 on a former ostrich farm on the University of Arizona campus, Steward Observatory now operates telescopes located on several different mountain ranges within southern Arizona. With its construction delayed by World War I, the original observatory was finally dedicated in 1923. The 36-inch diameter Newtonian telescope was the first to have been built using all American-made products. But by 1963, its once solitary setting had been encroached upon by a sprawling Tucson and the observatory’s original telescope was removed from the dome to a more isolated site on Kitt Peak. A smaller, 20-inch Cassegrain telescope was installed in its place for student use. The original dome is still a campus landmark and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Also on the UA campus is the Flandrau Space Center, established in 1975, which sports a 16-inch public telescope, a planetarium, and mineral museum.

The university has been involved in almost every planetary exploration since Pioneer 1, a failed mission to orbit the moon in 1958. UA’s latest space project is the $325 million Phoenix Mission, which will be launched in late 2007 for a 2008 landing on Mars — the largest single research grant in UA history. Phoenix will also be the first space mission not controlled from a NASA facility, but rather from the UA campus’ “Mission Control.”
Over the past twenty years UA has pioneered the design and construction of new telescope concepts. That work is taking place today at the UA College of Science’s Steward Observatory’s Mirror Lab — a one of a kind facility where researchers are developing the world’s largest telescope mirrors – 28 feet in diameter. They recently completed a 27-foot mirror for the $120 million Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) being built on Mt. Graham, which is expected to produce images 10 times sharper than the Hubble Space Telescope.

World Renowned Observatories
In the mountains surrounding Tucson, there are four major observatories conducting scientific research for universities around the world. The UA operates three telescopes at Kitt Peak, one at Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory and one on Mt. Graham. Most offer not only tours, but also special programs and even separate outdoor areas to set up your own telescope. A fourth site on Mt. Lemmon hosts astronomy camps at a former Air Defense Command radar site.

Established in 1958, Kitt Peak National Observatory was the first national observatory and today has 24 optical, infrared, and radio telescopes — the most diverse concentration of equipment in the world. It is also the site of the National Solar Observatory for studying the sun with the world’s three largest solar telescopes. Located 56 miles southwest of Tucson, the 200-acre site sits 6,875 feet atop the Quinlan mountain range, considered a sacred site by the Tohono O’odham, who call the scientists working there the “Men with the Long Eyes.”

Located 35 miles southeast of Tucson, the Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory sits on the 8,550 foot peak of Mt. Hopkins, the second highest peak in the Santa Rita Mountains. Established in 1968 by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, the observatory is known for its two All-Sky Survey telescopes, which have embarked on a mission to map the entire northern night sky. The site also houses the Multiple Mirror telescope, built in 1979 with help from the UA as the world’s first electronic telescope using computers to track stars. The computer scope was replaced in 1999 by a more advanced model.

The Mt. Graham International Observatory is the area’s newest eye to the sky, completed in 1993 and sitting 10,720 feet above Stafford. At the base of the mountain is the Governor Aker Observatory and Discovery Park, an interactive science center. Mt. Graham’s 1.8m Lennon optical telescope is a project of the Vatican Observatory and the site also contains the most accurate radio telescope ever built: the Heinrich Hertz Sub-millimeter Telescope.

The Steward Observatory runs a series of beginner and advanced astronomy camps at the Catalina Observatories atop  Mt. Lemmon, 45 miles north of Tucson. At night, campers observe celestial objects under a dark sky using the 40-inch and 60-inch telescopes on Mt. Lemmon, and the 61-inch telescope on nearby Mt. Bigelow. During the day, internationally known scientists speak on current scientific topics, including the latest NASA space missions.

And then there are the hundreds of area amateur astronomers – some with domed observatories on their roofs — numerous amateur astronomy clubs, private establishments with their own observatories for overnight guests, and “star parties” that gather monthly searching the skies for comets, asteroids, space junk and ET.

The Tucson Amateur Astronomical Association (TAAA) holds meetings the first Friday of the month at 7:30 p.m. in the lecture hall N210 at Steward Observatory on the University of Arizona campus. TAAA (tucsonastronomy.org.) holds two regularly scheduled star parties per month, one on the dark-of-the-moon weekend at the Las Cienegas Natural Conservation Area (50 miles southeast of Tucson), and one on the weekend before or after the new moon weekend at Tucson International Modelplex Park (seven miles west of the Saguaro National Park West). Both TAAA and Starizona, a nationally known telescope supplier (5201 N. Oracle Road, Starizona.com), compile listings of upcoming events and stargazing parties.

SIDEBAR

If You Go

For those who want to experience the universe but don’t have the luxury of owning their own telescope - let alone a private observatory, there are a number of options in southern Arizona for public viewing, star parties, astronomy camps, and over-night stays with access to a private observatory.

  - D.A Barber is a Tucson-based freelance writer. Images courtesy of NOAO/AURA/NSF and Copyright WIYN Consortium, Inc., all rights reserved.