MMT Observatory MMT Observatory The MMT Observatory (MMTO) is an astronomical observatory on the site of Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory (IAU observatory code 696). The Whipple observatory complex is located on Mount Hopkins, Arizona, US (55 km south of Tucson) in the Santa Rita Mountains. The observatory is run by the University of Arizona and the Smithsonian Institution, and has a visitor center in nearby Amado, Arizona. The MMTO is the home of the MMT (formerly Multiple Mirror Telescope), which currently has a primary mirror 6.5 m in diameter. The name originally comes from the fact that the light gathering for the
United States Naval Observatory Flagstaff Station complex. Attached to its large "hut" is the building housing NOFS' electronics and electrical engineering laboratories and clean rooms, where most of the advanced camera electronics, cryogenics and telescope control drives are developed and made. NOFS operates the Navy Precision Optical Interferometer (NPOI) in collaboration with Lowell Observatory and the Naval Research Laboratory at Anderson Mesa, south-east of Flagstaff. NOFS (the operational astrometric arm of USNO) funds all principle operations, and from this contracts Lowell Observatory to maintain the Anderson Mesa facility and make the observations necessary for NOFS to conduct the primary astrometric science. The Naval Research Laboratory (NRL)