Site Description
NOFS is the U.S. Navy's highest-elevation facility, and is 'land-locked', adjacent to Northern Arizona's San Francisco Peaks, on the alpine Colorado Plateau and geographically above the Mogollon Rim. The U.S. Navy selected the Flagstaff location to conduct the DoD's astrometric mission, owing to good seeing and dark skies there. Flagstaff and Coconino County minimize northern Arizona light pollution through legislation of progressive code – which regulates local lighting. Indeed, despite a half-century-young history, NOFS has a rich heritage which is derived from its parent organization, USNO, the oldest scientific institution in the U.S. NOFS is located west of town from the other observatory in the region, Lowell Observatory, and in fact Lowell Observatory's encouragement facilitated the elder Naval Observatory's decision to move its dark sky operations to Flagstaff in the mid-twentieth century.
At an elevation of approximately 7700 feet, NOFS is home to a number of astronomical instruments (some also described in the worldwide list of optical telescopes); some additional instrumentation is on nearby Anderson Mesa:
Read more about this topic: United States Naval Observatory Flagstaff Station
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