Tenagra II Observatory

Tenagra II Observatory sits in the hills near Patagonia, Arizona, about 20 miles south of Nogales, where an automated telescope has spent decades scanning the sky for asteroids and supernovae.

About Tenagra II Observatory

Tenagra II is built around a custom 32-inch Ritchey-Chrétien telescope from SciTech Astronomical Research, operating at an elevation of roughly 1,312 metres. The facility runs largely automated, feeding data on minor planets and asteroids to NASA.

History

The observatory has been operational since 2001. It was originally owned by astronomer Michael Schwartz; after a NASA grant supporting the site expired in 2018, ownership passed to the Virtual Telescope Project.

Telescopes & research

Beyond its automated minor-planet and asteroid detection work, Tenagra II has supported a supernova patrol and variable-star time-series studies, making it a working research instrument as much as a viewing site.

Location & getting there

The observatory sits in the hill country near Patagonia, in southern Arizona, not far from the U.S.-Mexico border, at an elevation that helps keep the site's skies clear and dark.

Visiting Tenagra II Observatory

As a working automated research facility, Tenagra II is not set up as a general tourist site. Check with the Virtual Telescope Project for the latest on access before planning a visit.

See your named star from here

Tenagra II's coordinates-driven, automated approach makes it a fitting example of how precisely a star's position can be tracked. A star named through Star Register comes with its own coordinates — explore our star packages and catalogue to find yours.