Wendee Levy, the author’s wife, spent several hours atop Kitt Peak capturing this image of spiral galaxy NGC 6946. Adam Block assisted and combined the various colors together to build this image.
Wendee Levy/Adam Block/NOAO/AURA/NSF
On a beautifully sunny late April day in 1963, my family made its first visit to Kitt Peak National Observatory. As we stood inside the massive interior of the McMath Solar Telescope, we saw the Sun’s rays reflected off a high “coelostat” mirror to the main mirror far below us, and then back to a smaller diagonal that sent the beam to an observing room beneath us.
