The MDM Observatory (''Michigan-Dartmouth-MIT Observatory''; obs. code:

697 __NOTOC__ Year 697 ( DCXCVII) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. The denomination 697 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar e ...

) is an

optical Optics is the branch of physics that studies the behaviour and properties of light, including its interactions with matter and the construction of instruments that use or detect it. Optics usually describes the behaviour of visible, ultraviole ...

astronomical

observatory An observatory is a location used for observing terrestrial, marine, or celestial events. Astronomy, climatology/meteorology, geophysical, oceanography and volcanology are examples of disciplines for which observatories have been constructed. His ...

located adjacent to

Kitt Peak National Observatory The Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO) is a United States astronomy, astronomical observatory located on Kitt Peak of the Quinlan Mountains in the Arizona-Sonoran Desert on the Tohono Oʼodham Nation, west-southwest of Tucson, Arizona. With ...

Kitt Peak Kitt Peak ( ood, Ioligam) is a mountain in the U.S. state of Arizona, and at is the highest point in the Quinlan Mountains. It is the location of the Kitt Peak National Observatory. The radio telescope at the observatory is one of ten dishes co ...

, west of

Tucson , "(at the) base of the black ill , nicknames = "The Old Pueblo", "Optics Valley", "America's biggest small town" , image_map = , mapsize = 260px , map_caption = Interactive map ...

, Arizona, in the United States. It is owned and operated by the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

Dartmouth College Dartmouth College (; ) is a private research university in Hanover, New Hampshire. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, it is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Although founded to educate Native A ...

Ohio State University The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best publ ...

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

, and

Ohio University Ohio University is a Public university, public research university in Athens, Ohio. The first university chartered by an Act of Congress and the first to be chartered in Ohio, the university was chartered in 1787 by the Congress of the Confeder ...

. The

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

(MIT) was also part of the operating consortium in the past. It has two

reflecting telescope A reflecting telescope (also called a reflector) is a telescope that uses a single or a combination of curved mirrors that reflect light and form an image. The reflecting telescope was invented in the 17th century by Isaac Newton as an alternati ...

s, the 2.4-meter (95 inches aperture

Hiltner Telescope The MDM Observatory (''Michigan-Dartmouth-MIT Observatory''; obs. code: 697) is an optical astronomical observatory located adjacent to Kitt Peak National Observatory on Kitt Peak, west of Tucson, Arizona, in the United States. It is own ...

(since 1986), used for galactic surveys, and the 1.3-meter (50 inch diameter aperture) McGraw–Hill Telescope (since 1975), which was originally located near

Ann Arbor Anne, alternatively spelled Ann, is a form of the Latin female given name Anna (name), Anna. This in turn is a representation of the Hebrew Hannah (given name), Hannah, which means 'favour' or 'grace'. Related names include Annie (given name), ...

, Michigan.

Hiltner Telescope

The mirror of the 2.4-meter Hiltner Telescope is aluminum-coated

Cer-Vit Cer-vit is a family of glass-ceramic materials that were invented by Owens Illinois in the mid-1960s. Its principle ingredients are the oxides of lithium, aluminum and silicon. It is melted to form a glass which is then heat treated to nucleate and ...

, and usable foci include f/7.5 and f/13.5 Cassegrain foci. The telescope was built in 1986 and the mirrors were re-polished in 1991. It was named after astronomer

W. Albert Hiltner William Albert Hiltner (27 August 1914 – 30 September 1991) was an American astronomer, noted for his work leading up to the discovery of interstellar polarization. He was an early practitioner of precision stellar photometry, and a pioneering ...

(1914-1991). The Hiltner was one of the telescopes that observed the turn on a nuclear transit, along with the Swift space telescope (aka Neil Gehrels ''Swift'' Observatory since 2018) and the

Gemini observatory The Gemini Observatory is an astronomical observatory consisting of two 8.1-metre (26.6 ft) telescopes, Gemini North and Gemini South, which are located at two separate sites in Hawaii and Chile, respectively. The twin Gemini telescopes prov ...

(8 meter ground observatory). The transient event was called PS1-13cbe and was located in the Galaxy SDSS J222153.87+003054.2.

McGraw–Hill Telescope

The 1.3-meter McGraw-Hill Telescope, with a 1.27-meter clear aperture, is an aluminum-coated Cer-Vit (low thermal expansion glass) telescope. Its usable foci include f/7.5 and f/13.5. The telescope was originally installed at Stinchfield Woods, Michigan in 1969, and moved in 1975 to MDM.

Asteroid 4432 McGraw-Hill

The asteroid 4432 McGraw-Hill is named after this telescope. It was discovered on March 2, 1981 by

Schelte J. Bus Schelte John "Bobby" Bus (born 1956) is an American astronomer and discoverer of minor planets at the Institute for Astronomy of the University of Hawaii and deputy director of NASA's Infrared Telescope Facility (IRTF) at the Mauna Kea Observat ...

at Siding Spring in the course of the UK Schmidt-Caltech Asteroid Survey. On February 18, 1992, the

International Astronomical Union The International Astronomical Union (IAU; french: link=yes, Union astronomique internationale, UAI) is a nongovernmental organisation with the objective of advancing astronomy in all aspects, including promoting astronomical research, outreac ...

officially assigned the name "McGraw-Hill" to the asteroid. The text of the citation, as officially published by IAU Commission 20 (), is as follows:

Gallery

Image:MDM Hiltner from Point.jpg, View from the Point Image:MDM View Down the Mountain.jpg, View down Kitt Peak from MDM Image:MDM View Up the Mountain.jpg, View up Kitt Peak from MDM Image:MDM Hiltner Dome Opening.jpg, Opening the Dome Image:MDM Hiltner Instruments 1.jpg, Instruments Image:MDM Hiltner Instruments 2.jpg, Instruments

References

External links