Sunlight enters the main observing room

Concentrated sunlight reaches its destination in the McMath-Pierce solar facility at the Kitt Peak National Observatory near Tucson, Arizona. The beam is seen coming up the main tunnel from the secondary mirror (left), and being reflected down into the main observing room below, where it will enter the spectrograph for detailed analysis. The astronomer would not normally be standing in this location. This picture was taken in 1969 from near the east side of the visitors' gallery. Another part of the path can be seen in this picture.