Kitt Peak National Observatory Media Day

The Visitor Center at the U.S. National Science Foundation Kitt Peak National Observatory is celebrating its 60th anniversary! To help bring news of this momentous occasion to the public, we invite the media to take part in a Media Day at Kitt Peak on Friday, September 27th from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.

Photo credit: KPNO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA

More about the photo above: Although this appears to be a daytime scene, star trails circle and illuminate the night sky in this long-exposure photo of Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO), a Program of NSF’s NOIRLab. The telescope visible at the highest peak is the Nicholas U. Mayall 4-meter Telescope and almost directly above it, at the center of the concentric star trails, sits the North Star, Polaris. As the Earth turns and the stars appear to move through the sky, Polaris remains stationary at the north celestial pole, our planet’s axis of rotation. The lights of Tucson, Arizona, glow yellow on the horizon about 89 kilometers (55 miles) to the northeast. The NOIRLab citizen science campaign Globe at Night enables stargazers of all ages to help monitor their city’s light pollution no matter where they are in the world.

Media advisory: Invitation to Media Day at Kitt Peak National Observatory

Media will have exclusive access to facilities and interviews with the people leading and working at Kitt Peak, as well as representatives of the Tohono O’odham Nation. A common briefing will occur at 10 a.m., which will offer an opportunity to hear and ask questions about the history of the Kitt Peak Visitor Center, the Visitor Center’s strategy in the past and going forward, and the cultural connections that the Tohono O’odham Nation have to the observatory and the mountain.

After the briefing participants will branch out to individual experiences and interviews. Throughout the day media will be able to participate in exclusive, personalized, behind-the-scenes tours on the mountain and conduct interviews with key staff, such as the Director of Mid-scale Observatories and the Visitor Center Operations Manager.

There will also be an opportunity for select media to participate in two of the Visitor Center’s most popular nighttime programs: the Nightly Observing Program, the Dark Sky Discovery Program and the Overnight Telescope Observing Program. After being treated to dinner, participants will have a chance to see some of the observatory’s telescopes in action and experience the night sky from one of the best locations for astronomy in the world.

Arizona media are invited to Kitt Peak Visitor Center’s 60th Birthday Celebration with 1964 prices on 27 September 2024

Photo credit: M. Hunt/KPNO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA

To express interest in participating in the Media Day, and to reserve a slot in either of the nighttime programs, please fill out this form by September 20th.

This is the first substantial opportunity that the media has had to visit Kitt Peak after the observatory underwent a series of challenges. With the COVID pandemic beginning in 2020, followed by the Contreras Fire that threatened the facilities on the mountain in 2022, visits to the mountain have been significantly limited for over three years. Kitt Peak and the Visitor Center are excited to officially invite the media back for the first time since reopening in 2023.

As part of the 60th anniversary celebration, all day- and evening tours on September 27th will be priced as in 1964: Daytime Tours for the public will be free all day and evening tours will start at $7.50.

With a view stretching 160 kilometers (100 miles) to all sides, Kitt Peak is an excellent place to experience Arizona’s monsoon weather and witness the changing climate first hand. With temperatures being consistently more than 10 degrees C (20 degrees F) cooler at Kitt Peak, the public is encouraged to come up and beat the heat.