Bringing the Observatory to You!

2 December 2024

Do you live outside of Arizona, Hawai‘i, and Chile, but still want your students to experience NSF NOIRLab’s world-class telescopes? Now you can bring the centers exploring the wonders of the Universe directly to your classroom or remote teaching environment with NOIRLab’s Virtual Tours. 

The Experience

The comprehensive virtual tours are loaded with interactive elements that give special behind-the-scenes access to the facilities and diverse communities that make astronomy research possible. The entire virtual tour suite consists of eight different locations, featuring panoramic images from various areas near the summit and base facilities of all our Programs, and is supported on PC, Mac, iOS, Android, and virtual reality headsets.

The virtual tours include NSF NOIRLab Headquarters in Tucson, NSF Kitt Peak National Observatory southwest of Tucson on the Tohono O’odham Nation, Maunakea and the Hilo Base Facilities in Hawai‘i, as well as NSF Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, Cerro Pachón and the AURA Recinto in Chile, and the Giant Magellan Telescope and Thirty Meter Telescope, the two telescopes that make up the US Extremely Large Telescope Program.

Supporting Classroom Standards

The virtual tour experience supports the disciplinary core idea ETS2: Links Among Engineering, Technology, Science and Society in the Framework for K-12 Science Education and learning objective OA 16 of the Chilean Curriculum Nacional, challenging students to “investigate and explain research on astronomy in Chile and the rest of the world, considering the technology used…”. The virtual tours demonstrate how scientists and engineers work together to design advanced instruments for scientific discovery. These engineering innovations improve data collection and analysis to improve our understanding of the natural world. 

Go on an adventure and delve into NOIRLab’s Virtual Tours today!

Contacts

Justine Schaen
Senior Education Specialist
NSF NOIRLab
Email: justine.schaen@noirlab.edu