United States Naval Observatory Flagstaff Station facts for kids

The United States Naval Observatory Flagstaff Station (NOFS) is an astronomical observatory located near Flagstaff, Arizona, USA. It is a special place where scientists study the sky at night. NOFS is part of the United States Naval Observatory (USNO). Together, they help manage the "Celestial Reference Frame" for the U.S. Secretary of Defense. This means they help map out where things are in space very precisely.

About the Observatory

The Flagstaff Station was created by the USNO in 1955. It was moved from Washington, D.C., because city lights made it hard to see the stars clearly there. NOFS is about five miles (8.0 km) west of Flagstaff, Arizona. Many scientists, like astronomers and astrophysicists, work here. They also have engineers and support staff.

The main goal of NOFS is to support "positional astronomy." This is the science of measuring the exact positions and movements of stars and other objects in space. They create very accurate star catalogs. Because there are so many objects in space, and they are always moving, it takes a long time to map them all. Observing each object can take weeks, months, or even years.

The United States Naval Observatory, Flagstaff Station, celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2005. Dr. John Hall founded NOFS. Dr. Art Hoag was its first director in 1955. Both later became directors of the nearby Lowell Observatory. Today, Dr. Paul Shankland is the director.

NOFS works hard to keep the skies around Flagstaff dark. This helps them do their important research. It also protects a natural resource for everyone to enjoy for years to come.

Dark-sky operations at the United States Naval Observatory Flagstaff Station (NOFS)

Where NOFS Is Located

NOFS is located near the San Francisco Peaks in northern Arizona. It sits on the high Colorado Plateau. The nearby city of Flagstaff and Coconino County have special rules to reduce light pollution. This helps keep the night sky dark for the observatory.

Even though NOFS is only about 70 years old, it has a rich history. Its parent organization, USNO, is the oldest science institution in the U.S. Important events at NOFS include helping the Apollo Astronaut program. They also discovered Charon, Pluto's moon, in 1978. NOFS is about 7,500 feet (2,300 m) high. It has several telescopes, and some other instruments are on nearby Anderson Mesa.

The U.S. Navy helps take care of the observatory, its land, and the efforts to protect the dark skies.

Kaj Strand Telescope

The 1.55-meter (61-inch) Kaj Strand Telescope, or KSAR, is the largest telescope operated by the U.S. Navy. It started working in 1964. This telescope can see both visible light and near infrared light.

In 1978, this telescope was used to discover Charon, the main moon of dwarf planet Pluto. (Pluto itself was discovered in 1930 at Lowell Observatory, across town). The discovery of Charon helped scientists figure out how small Pluto really was. This eventually led to Pluto being reclassified as a dwarf planet by the IAU.

The 1.55-meter telescope also tracked NASA's Deep Impact Spacecraft. This spacecraft successfully hit Comet 9p/Tempel in 2005. This telescope is also great for studying how stars move across the sky (called stellar parallax). It also helps with space navigation and even helped discover a very cool brown dwarf object in 2002.

The KSAR telescope is inside a large dome. This dome also has a special facility for coating telescope mirrors. They can put very thin coatings on large mirrors to help them reflect light better.

1.3-m Telescope

The 1.3-meter (51-inch) telescope is a Ritchey–Chrétien telescope. It was made by DFM Engineering and improved by NOFS staff. Its main mirror was made by Corning Glass Works and Kodak. This telescope has a special computer system to keep its mirrors perfectly aligned. This helps it get very precise images of stars and satellites across a wide area of the sky.

This telescope has advanced cameras, including a special cryogenic camera. It can track both stars and man-made satellites orbiting Earth. Scientists use this telescope to study things like "Space Situational Awareness," which means keeping track of objects in space. They also study different types of stars, how multiple star systems move, and exoplanets. Exoplanets are planets that orbit stars outside our solar system.

1.0-m Telescope

The 1.0-meter (40-inch) "Ritchey–Chrétien Telescope" is a very old and important telescope. It was the original telescope moved from USNO in Washington in 1955. It was also the very first Ritchey-Chrétien telescope ever made! George Ritchey himself built it. This telescope is still working after more than 50 years at NOFS.

It helps with many important tasks. For example, it helps create a "reference frame" using distant quasars. It also helps find exoplanets as they pass in front of their stars. It studies M-Dwarf stars and helps track objects orbiting in space.

This telescope is also used to test new "adaptive optics" systems. These systems help correct blurry images caused by Earth's atmosphere. They make the images clearer, like looking through calm water instead of wavy water. These systems will be used on bigger telescopes in the future.

The 40-inch dome is at the highest point of the small mountain where NOFS is located. Next to it is a workshop with advanced machines for building and repairing telescope parts.

0.2-m FASTT

The 0.20-meter (8-inch) Flagstaff Astrometric Scanning Transit Telescope (FASTT) is a fully robotic telescope. It was finished in 1981. FASTT provides very precise positions of objects in our solar system. This information is used to create the "Astronomical Almanac" and "Nautical Almanac."

These almanacs are used by NASA to navigate its spacecraft deep in space. Data from FASTT helped NASA's JPL successfully land the Huygens Lander on Titan, a moon of Saturn, in 2005. It also helped guide NASA's New Horizons mission to Pluto, which arrived in 2015. FASTT is located southwest of the main complex. Nearby is a building with laboratories where advanced camera electronics and telescope control systems are developed.

Navy Precision Optical Interferometer

NOFS also operates the Navy Precision Optical Interferometer (NPOI). This is a special telescope system located at Anderson Mesa, about 15 miles (24 km) south-east of Flagstaff. NOFS works with Lowell Observatory and the Naval Research Laboratory to run NPOI.

NPOI is a type of astronomical interferometer. This means it combines light from several smaller telescopes to act like one giant telescope. This allows it to see incredibly fine details. Most of the funding and management for NPOI comes from NOFS. However, Lowell Observatory and the Naval Research Laboratory also use it for their own scientific projects.

NPOI is one of the few major instruments in the world that can do "optical interferometry." This means it can combine visible light from different telescopes. NOFS has used NPOI for many scientific studies. Besides mapping star positions, NPOI has studied binary stars (two stars orbiting each other), Be stars, oblate stars (stars flattened at their poles), and rapidly rotating stars. It has also imaged the surfaces of stars (called stellar disks) for the first time in history. In 2007–2008, NPOI was even used to get images of satellites in geostationary orbit.

Navy Precision Optical Interferometer (NPOI) Layout

Images for kids

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  The Kaj Strand 1.55-m telescope.

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  The wide field 1.3-m telescope.

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  The 40-inch Ritchey telescope.

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  The Ron Stone FASTT telescope.

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  The NPOI from above.

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  The 1.55-meter telescope helped discover Pluto's main moon, Charon.