Red Dish at Night

An eerily lit radio telescope observes a starry sky in this image from Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO), a Program of NSF NOIRLab. Telescopes that probe the Universe at radio wavelengths, such as the one shown here, are blind to visible light. This means that they can be illuminated during operation — making them spectacular subjects for astrophotography!

The telescope in this image is the UArizona 12-meter Telescope, a prototype dish for the huge ALMA array in Chile’s Atacama Desert. KPNO hosts a diverse collection of telescopes, with more than 20 optical telescopes and two radio telescopes from a variety of universities and research organizations.

Credit:

KPNO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/B. Tafreshi 

About the Image

Id:iotw2135a
Type:Photographic
Release date:Sept. 1, 2021, noon
Size:4263 x 5447 px

About the Object


Image Formats

Large JPEGLarge JPEG
4.7 MB
Screensize JPEGScreensize JPEG
350.2 KB

Zoomable


Wallpapers

1024x7681024x768
253.3 KB
1280x10241280x1024
399.2 KB
1600x12001600x1200
536.5 KB
1920x12001920x1200
654.8 KB
2048x15362048x1536
3.8 MB