Kitt Peak by Night

February 28, 2025

We have a full day before our trip to Kitt Peak this afternoon. After our ride up there last Sunday, we're both excited to drive up there and see it all again. We have tickets for the nightly observing program that starts at 4:30. Tonight there's a new moon and the planets are supposed to be all lined up together at dusk.

There's lots to do before we leave at 3:30. First up is the Friday 8 am yoga practice. We have our biggest group yet - eight people for Kassandra's "Hips Don't Lie," program. It's full of pigeons, lizards, 3-legged dogs and more animal pose hip maneuvers that get everything nice and loose for the next ride.

After yoga Barry and I burn an hour on a previously scheduled webinar, then head out for a ride on the trails. We don't get far before he realizes his helmet is still sitting back on the picnic table. In the process of turning around to go back for it, he falls and bumps a jumping cholla, landing with a colony of the stems lodged in his right hip and arm.

Having had my share of nasty cholla encounters, I carry a cholla field kit in my hydration pack, consisting of a plastic comb and tweezers. Not much of a kit, I know, but it gets the job done and this is the first time we've had to use it this trip. I use the comb to pull off the cholla stems, yanking clusters of barbs out of his skin. With the tweezers I pull out dozens more spines.

Once Barry is freed of the torment, we go to work on the stems and spines studding his saddle and tires. To his credit, even after this inauspicious start, he is still up for the ride and doubles back to get the helmet.

While Barry's gone I stash the cactus kit in the hydration backpack and put it on so I'll be ready to go as soon as he's back. Looking around now I notice all the little stems we pulled off of him scattered on the trail. I don't want to leave them there to jump up on the next unsuspecting biker or hiker.

The smart play would be to dig the tweezers out of my backpack again to move the prickly bits, but instead I go for the boneheaded play. Gingerly I try to pick up a stem by a spine. The stem jumps right onto my glove, poking a few barbs into my right hand. My attempts to dislodge it just cause more spines to dig in.

Now I really need the cactus kit, but can't unclasp the chest strap on the hydration backpack with my left hand to get the pack off. When I try to undo the clasp with my right hand more barbs poke me. I wrestle with the clasp left-handed a while longer until finally I get the bright idea to take the glove off, ripping the spines out of my hand.

I just about have my hand, glove and the trail cleaned up when Barry is back with his helmet. Let's go ride.

Welp, that was an entirely avoidable extra

On the way up to Cougar trail we nail a bunch of big hills. I still hike the bike on the rock steps in Death Valley wash. Maybe I'll take a run at it next year. Once we get up to the powerline we have a blast bombing up and down the rolling hills. The ride back down to the park is a fast one on easy trails.

Even as dry as it is, the desert looks especially lovely today. The clouds are a concern for the star show later though.

Barry zips around the curves on Triple C

Death Valley has a lot of pink rocks I haven't noticed before. I wonder what minerals make this color.

The prickly pear plants are all shades of dry.

This might be my favorite scene out here, looking south from Cougar Trail at the high point of the ride. Today it's extra gorgeous with the blooms on the ocotillo.

After lunch and a shower I gather up all the funky bike clothes and towels and head for the laundry room. My timing is lucky - two washing machines are open and there's a jam session going on next door in the Rec Hall. Hank and some other talented folks from the park are playing 70s classics from the likes of Neil Yong, John Denver and CSNY. They're having fun and sound great; fine entertainment while I fold clothes and wait for the towels to dry.

"Hey, it's good to be back home again ♪♪"

The chores are done by 3:30 when it's time to leave for our night tour at Kitt Peak National Observatory. We enjoy the drive back up there but the pictures from our ride up the mountain last Sunday under a clear blue sky were better.

While it’s been clear all week, the skies are clouding up as we arrive at 4:30. We were advised to dress for windy conditions in the mid-40s on the mountain. I had the down jacket all ready to go, but when we get to the observatory it's not in the car. Luckily my hot pink bike windbreaker is still here, along with a bulky sweater. I'll improvise.

Clouds gather over Kitt Peak National Observatory. The Nicholas Mayall 4-meter telescope at right is the largest one here.

The program starts in the visitor center with a NOVA video about the role of dark energy in accelerating expansion of the universe. We hear more about it from Vince, one of the presenters, who describes how astronomers are using data from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument on the 4-meter Mayall telescope to measure the expansion history of the universe.

Vince is a recent Arizona University Astronomy graduate with a Dad joke problem. Did you know that Sirius the dog star is moving towards Earth at nine miles per second? We could be in Sirius trouble someday!

After a box dinner and more info that sails over my head we all go outside by a giant concrete donut. It was made as an engineering test model for the 4-meter Mayall telescope mirror, to make sure they got the specs right. Vince calls it a "measure twice, cut once" play. Now the donut is the canvas for a mural by artist Michael Chiago, depicting scenes from his youth growing up on the Tohono O'odham reservation. Kitt Peak was built on their land, under a lease agreement with the National Science Foundation.

While the clouds don't look great at the moment for stargazing, they make for a beautiful sunset. At the lookout point we talk about out how the refraction of sunlight through the atmosphere produces all the different colors. At dusk, Jupiter is one of the first things to appear in the night sky. The rest of the planets are lined up with it somewhere behind the clouds.

When the sun goes down I’m wishing that I brought that jacket. Another layer under my jeans would be nice too. I’m relieved when we go back in the visitor center and get some open time to look around at the exhibits.

After awhile, Lorelei, the program manager, comes in with the good news that the skies have partly cleared, enough to see lots of stars with the naked eye as well as the telescope. We sort ourselves into groups for the next phase of viewings.

Our group starts with a shuttle ride down to the McMath-Pierce Solar Telescope building, site of what was the world’s largest solar telescope for over 50 years going back to 1962. It was decommissioned in 2017, supplanted by the 4 meter Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope on the summit of Haleakala on Maui. Now the building is being repurposed as a center for astronomy outreach that will be a major expansion for the visitor center.

The original 50+ year old telescope equipment is all here. Lorelei leads us to the new Science on a Sphere classroom where a six foot sphere in the center illustrates the Earth rotating on its axis. A press of a button changes the image to Jupiter and then to our Sun. This looks like an awesome educational tool for the facility.

A projection of the Sun with sunspots rotating on the giant sphere

Our next station is a .5 meter telescope, outside the main visitor center and up a short flight of stairs. Here we all do a Conga line as Lorelei calls it, up to the telescope to look at Jupiter. It's an awesome image. We can see two of Jupiter's dark belts and three of the Galilean moons.

The third stop is outside on the patio with Kathie. She does a neat lesson on stargazing, first with our eyes and then with a portable telescope. We start by finding Orion overhead, and the bright star on his right shoulder, Betelgeuse. With her nifty laser pointer that seems to shoot up to the stars, Kathie guides us to other constellations. From Orion's belt she draws us up to find Taurus and the Pleiades.

Next she invites us to conga up to the portable SeeStar "smart" telescope that she has trained on the Orion Nebula. It's an amazing view that she pulled up using the SeeStar phone app. On another pass she points the telescope at the Pleiades, a lovely sight. This whole part of the evening eventually draws me down a rabbit hole of Greek mythology and astronomy.

A few days later Kathie will email us a link to these pictures that she took tonight with the SeeStar. For about 500 bucks, it seems like a very capable telescope and camera.

The Orion Nebula, the closest large star-forming region to Earth

The Pleiades - in Greek mythology, the Seven Sisters who were daughters of the ocean nymph Pleione

I rate the nightly observing program highly, worth the investment of time and money. Let's wrap it up with a couple more cool photos Kathie shared from the night.

Cassiopeia on the left, Queen of Aethiopia and mother to Andromeda

Tucson lights and the Big Dipper from the parking lot as we drive home

I don't know where else we could find this much adventure, entertainment, education and beauty but in Tucson. Top tier day.

This morning's bike course, seems like such a long time ago

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Today's ride: 12 miles (19 km)
Total: 825 miles (1,328 km)

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Kelly IniguezI will remember the observatory for when we have company. Good write up.
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