We attended a Smithsonian astronomy seminar in Tucson.
We had classes and visits to giant professional telescopes in the daytime,
then viewing celestial objects through telescopes each night.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kitt Peak
A dozen huge professional telescopes on a 6800-foot mountain

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Radio telescopes

 

 

 

 

 

Solar telescope

Left - from the outside              Right - from the inside

 

 

 

 

Jon's face (with camera) about 50 feet tall
reflected in a multiple-mirror telescope

 

People standing at the base
of the same multiple-mirror telescope,
showing each mirror is as tall as a person

 

 

 

 

 

 

Vega-Bray, a private observatory for astronomy enthusiasts like us

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Several of the telescopes available for public use at Vega-Bray

 

 

 

 

 

Our Smithsonian class with the telescopes we each built

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Biosphere, an enclosed and sealable glass building
for plant and environmental research

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One of about a hundred live hummingbirds in an enclosure
at the outdoor Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We stayed in Tucson at the beautiful Arizona Inn

 

 

 

 

 

Maui Vacation - Jon's Maui Info