Image of the Week

15 April 2020: The glow behind the 3.5-meter WIYN telescope looks like a celestial aura, but it is really a phenomenon known as the Zodiacal Light. This faint glow, created by the scattering of light by small dust particles left over from the formation of our Solar System, is only visible during evening and morning twilight (in the west and east, respectively) and along the plane of the Solar System or the zodiac (hence the name zodiacal light). The WIYN telescope is part of the Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO), a program of NSF’s NOIRLab. Also visible is the brilliant light of the planet Venus just above the telescope’s dome.

8 April 2020: During rare cloudy weather, a vivid red sunset reflects off the dome of the international Gemini Observatory’s Gemini South telescope in Chile, a program of NSF’s NOIRLab. In this image, sunlight is scattered and reflected by gas, dust and particulates in the Earth’s atmosphere and spreads an artist’s palette of red and orange colors across the sky as the Sun sets over Chile’s Pacific coast. Fortunately, the nearby clouds reflecting these colors cleared out in time for the 8.1-meter Gemini primary mirror to collect starlight and complete a productive night of science observations — but not before treating the observatory staff to this dazzling display.

1 April 2020: A colorful sunset and layers of blue mountaintops backdrops the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO), a program of NSF’s NOIRLab. Most prominent in the image is the Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope, which sits atop Cerro Tololo itself. The SMARTS 1.5-meter and 0.9-meter telescopes, as well as a selection of CTIO’s tenant observatories, are scattered along the ridge. This location allows astronomers a stellar view of the southern night sky, providing access to objects not visible from the northern hemisphere, such as the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds.

25 March 2020: The summer Milky Way rises behind the iconic McMath-Pierce Solar Telescope at NSF’s NOIRLab. The McMath-Pierce was the largest solar telescope in the world from its dedication in 1962 until it ceased research operations at the end of 2017. The interior of the facility is currently being renovated to become the Windows on the Universe Center for Astronomy Outreach. This new facility will give visitors to Kitt Peak a variety of educational experiences, including a portable planetarium, Science on a Sphere, displays highlighting NSF’s astronomy facilities and an unprecedented look at this historic telescope.

18 March 2020: This scene shows an arresting purple sky streaked with star trails over Cerro Pachón, the site of the Gemini South telescope (right) and the 4.1 meter Southern Astrophysical Research telescope (SOAR, left), both programs of the NSF’s Optical Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory. From this mountaintop perch, which lies at an altitude of 2,737 meters (8980 ft) in the Chilean Andes, the 8.1-meter Gemini South telescope can survey the Southern sky — complementing the view from Gemini North atop Maunakea in Hawaiʻi. Together, these astronomical twins can access the entire night sky.

11 March 2020: Over the past week, almost 300 classrooms in the Hilo, Hawai‘i area engaged with local Maunakea observatory staff and other astronomy STEM professionals during the 16th annual Journey Through the Universe program. Here, Scot Kleinman, Gemini’s Associate Director of Development, shares how a coronagraph helps scientists discover exoplanets with second-grade students from Hilo’s E. B. De Silva elementary school. Now in its 16th year, the annual Journey Through the Universe program, led by staff at the international Gemini Observatory, a program of the NSF’s NOIRLab, brings hands-on science demonstrations into K-12 classrooms to inspire the next generation of explorers.

4 March 2020: Kitt Peak National Observatory, a program of NSF’s NOIRLab, is located on land leased from the Tohono O’odham Nation. NSF’s NOIRLab staff frequently partner with the American Indian Science and Engineering Students (AISES) chapter at Tohono O’odham Community College to host star-gazing events and other local engagement activities. One popular activity is for students to build and launch water rockets out of two-liter bottles with glow sticks attached to make the flights visible against the dark Arizona skies. This image shows the trajectory of a launch that reaches its apex near the constellation of Orion. The winter Milky Way also arcs high overhead along with the setting Venus, the glow of the setting Moon (just below and left of Venus), and the faint wedge-shaped Zodiacal Light all in the western early evening sky (at right of image).

26 February 2020: This long-exposure photograph shows the motion of stars during the night above the Blanco 4-meter telescope (left) and the SMARTS 1.5-meter telescope (right) at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile, a program of the NSF’s National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory. Also visible in the photo are the trails left by astronomers walking to the Blanco telescope, created by their flashlights. Stars streak through the sky over the course of this one-hour exposure, appearing to spin around the south celestial pole in the upper left of the image. The star closest to the south celestial pole is Sigma Octantis, a relatively faint yellow giant star about 275 light-years from Earth. In contrast to the relatively bright north star, Polaris, Sigma Octantis is not bright enough to use for celestial navigation.

19 February 2020: As stars appear to circle around the north celestial pole, a new laser at the Gemini North telescope on Hawaii’s Maunakea undergoes rigorous testing, as seen in this image from early October 2019. The international Gemini Observatory, a program of the NSF's NOIRLab, recently completed testing of a new laser from the company TOPTICA which is a critical component in the telescope’s adaptive optics system. Adaptive optics utilize artificial guide stars, produced by a laser, as a reference when compensating for distortions caused by turbulence in the Earth’s atmosphere. The result is ultra-sharp images that rival the view from space.Laser commissioning activities required pointing at specific parts of the sky designed to both test and calibrate the state-of-the-art laser. This image is created from a stack of images that reveal the Earth’s rotation and the colors inherent in the images. The green glow near the horizon is due to airglow …

12 February 2020: A young artist adds his touch to the United States National Science Foundation’s (NSF’s) graphic wall at the 235th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Honolulu, Hawai‘i. This wall, designed by graphic designer Pete Marenfeld, was the center of the NSF Pavilion at the meeting, and encouraged participants to take a break from the meeting and indulge their creative sides — while exploring some of NSF’s world-class observatories which are part of NSF’s NOIRLab. A time-lapse video shows the fascinating evolution of this wall painting over the duration of the 4-day meeting. Equipped with neon chalk markers, visitors to the NSF Pavilion doodled, colored, and annotated to produce a collaborative work of art showcasing cutting-edge astronomical facilities such as the International Gemini Observatory, Kitt Peak National Observatory, Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory and the Vera C. Rubin Observatory which is currently under construction. With the AAS meeting concluded, the artwork …

5 February 2020: This night-time photo of the Gemini South telescope on Cerro Pachón, Chile features a marvelous view of the Milky Way arching overhead and reflecting off some of the 668 photovoltaic panels that help power the facility. The same clear skies that provide such spectacular views of our galaxy also allow Gemini South, one of two telescopes making up the international Gemini Observatory a program of NSF’s Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory, to enjoy abundant sunlight during the day — making solar panels a down-to-earth addition to the facility. Starlight isn’t bright enough to generate electricity at night, when the astronomical observations take place, but during daylight hours these solar panels can provide over 28% of the power needed to run the observatory — helping to keep astronomy environmentally friendly.

29 January 2020: When the weather conditions are just right, glowworms come out at night at Kitt Peak National Observatory. This glowworm crossed the road in front of the WIYN 3.5-meter telescope as the last of the summer Milky Way sets behind the WIYN dome. Although only the tail end of the glowworm is bioluminescent, the glowworm appears as a streak over the 10 second exposure, and the image shows how much distance it covered over the period of the exposure.

22 January 2020: After more than a week of wintery weather, the clouds started lifting over the Gemini North telescope of the international Gemini Observatory (center) on Maunakea. Joy Pollard of NSF’s National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory snapped this shot during a visit to the mountain on 15 January. While snow is not uncommon on the nearly 14,000-foot summit area, this is the first major snowfall this winter on the mountaintop. The snowfall left drifts as high as 2 meters (7 feet) surrounding Gemini North and required the recruitment of staff volunteers to help shovel snow off the dome in order to get back on the sky as quickly as possible.

15 January 2020: The Vera C. Rubin Observatory (formerly known as the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope or LSST — see the press release) is featured in this peaceful twilight image. Currently under construction on Cerro Pachón in the Chilean Andes, the Rubin Observatory will produce the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST), a ten-year optical survey of the visible sky that begins in October 2022. The survey will be conducted using the 8.4-meter Simonyi Survey Telescope, which is currently being assembled inside the summit facility, and the 3200-megapixel DOE-funded LSST Camera, which is nearing completion at SLAC National Laboratory. The Rubin Observatory is expected to image 37 billion stars and galaxies during the survey, and will produce about 20 terabytes of data every night. In just the first year of the survey, it will image more asteroids, stars, quasars, and galaxies than all previous telescopes combined.

8 January 2020: The Milky Way arches high over the Blanco 4-meter Telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO) in Chile. The Blanco 4-meter Telescope began operating in 1976, providing astronomers with a world-class observatory in the southern hemisphere, and it continues to produce cutting-edge science. The Blanco is currently equipped with the Dark Energy Camera (DECam), a state-of-the-art 500-megapixel camera which completed the five-year Dark Energy Survey in early 2019. DECam continues with an expanded mission and is providing astronomers with a powerful tool for studying dark energy, exoplanets and more.

1 January 2020: Every year around the winter solstice, the Sun appears to set behind Kitt Peak National Observatory as seen from Mount Lemmon almost 100 km (60 miles) away. Local photographers meet every year around the holidays to capture photos and videos of this interesting alignment. For a brief time, you can see many of the Kitt Peak telescopes, from the distinctive McMath-Pierce Solar telescope (left) to the large dome of the Mayall 4-meter telescope (right). The still image depicts the silhouettes of the telescopes with a green segment above the Sun and was taken on 17 December 2016. The video was captured on 20 December 2019. Links Sunset over Kitt Peak National Observatory

25 December 2019: The Milky Way hangs poised over the Gemini South telescope The colorful band of the Milky Way is poised above the 8.1-meter Gemini South telescope of NSF’s National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory in this arresting image, which depicts bright patches of stars threaded through with winding lanes of dust. The Galactic Center hangs directly above the telescope, framing one of the most powerful astronomical observatories in the southern hemisphere. The picture also captures the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, which appear on the left side of the image. These dwarf irregular galaxies are satellites of the Milky Way, and lack the conspicuous spiral arms of larger nearby galaxies such as the Andromeda Galaxy (also part of the Local Group of galaxies which includes our Milky Way). Despite being a fraction of the size of the Milky Way, the Magellanic Clouds contain billions of stars, and together they are a prominent …

18 December 2019: The staff of NSF’s NOIRLab wish you and yours a happy holiday season and hope your skies are clear, dark and full of stars!

11 December 2019: Jupiter, Venus and the Moon Converge over Observatories: Southern Astrophysical Research (SOAR) Telescope operator Carlos Corco obtained this image of the recent conjunction of Jupiter, Venus and the Moon (right) over the 8-meter Gemini South telescope (left) on Cerro Pachón in Chile. A conjunction is the apparent meeting of two or more celestial bodies in the night sky. Also visible (in the distance, just right of center) is the silhouette of the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) which is currently under construction. In late 2022, LSST is slated to begin an unprecedented, decade-long, survey of the night sky in optical wavelengths, surveying the entire visible sky every few nights. Using an 8.4-meter mirror (with an effective aperture of about 6.7 meters) and the largest digital camera ever fabricated for optical astronomy, LSST will shed light on astronomical questions ranging from the nature of dark matter and dark energy to the …

4 December 2019: Breathtaking observatory panorama showcases the Milky Way This breathtaking panorama, captured by Hernan Stockebrand, showcases the pristine skies at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO). CTIO, a program of NSF’s NOIRLab, is a complex of astronomical telescopes and instruments in the Chilean Andes. CTIO’s mountainous surroundings and altitude — the site is 2200 meters (7200 feet) above sea level — ensure the mountaintop observatory enjoys spectacular night skies. This colorful panorama shows the arch of the Milky Way hanging above the observatory facilities, as well as strands of low clouds illuminated by the Moon, which is visible on the right side of the image. At the center of this image is the Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope, with the SMARTS 1.5-meter Telescope to the right and the SMARTS 0.9-meter Telescope at far right. To the left of the Víctor M. Blanco Telescope is the 0.9-meter Curtis Schmidt Telescope and the …