In April 2010, Fred was on one of his month‑long trips around the country. I flew down to Tucson and he picked me up at the airport. We had scheduled two nights of observing and imaging with Adam Block atop Mt. Lemmon. We had all afternoon before heading up the mountain, so we drove south toward Nogales, had some Mexican food for lunch, and then wandered over to the Titan Missile Museum.

The museum is located at the last remaining Titan Missile silo in the southwest. Originally, there were a few dozen of them scattered around the region. Fred is standing with part of a guidance package.

Here is one of the nose cones. Inside this version, they could fit three nuclear warheads (MIRVs). The cone would separate from the missile at a predetermined altitude, giving the three warheads time to split off and reach different targets.

The guided tour starts with a short presentation in a small theater. From there we donned hard hats and took a stroll through the compound. You wouldn’t know it, but there is a small community built 4–5 stories below. Here are a couple of the missile engines. A valve would open, two compounds would mix in a chamber, and BOOM — a whole lot of thrust.

The exhaust cones look to be about 5 feet in diameter. Carol and I were at Cape Canaveral last summer (2014), and the difference in size between these engines and those of the Saturn V (Apollo Program) was stunning. The Saturn V engine exhaust looked to be around 12½ feet in diameter.

Another nose cone.

The cover to the silo is poured, reinforced concrete mounted on hydraulic rollers — some serious weight there. The blast doors were built to withstand a nearby nuclear blast. The cover is permanently positioned halfway open so that the Russians can continue to verify the silo status via satellite imaging. This is looking down from the surface through the blast door.

Here is the silo with the concrete cap.

Here we are in the command room. In front of the guide is the commander’s console. Off to his right on the edge of the electronics rack is the desk for the other launch officer. They used what is called Two‑Man Control. If a launch message came in, they would each decode it independently, then compare results to ensure accuracy. If the message was valid, they would crack open the “Cookie” — a credit‑card‑sized authentication card that you snapped in half to reveal the actual launch authorization. They would then program the three assigned target coordinates. When it was time to launch, each officer had a key, and both keys had to be turned at the same time. The keys were spaced far enough apart that one person could not turn both. Back when I flew the F‑106, we used the same Cookie authentication system to launch the AIR‑2A (Genie), a nuclear‑tipped tactical rocket. This room brought back a lot of memories from my early Air Guard days. The guide (docent) actually worked in this silo as a launch officer.

Another view of the Launch Commander’s console.

The entire underground complex was built on giant springs to absorb the shock of a nuclear explosion without suffering structural damage.

Looking through a viewing window. This missile and silo were featured in the Star Trek: First Contact film.

The Titan II was used for the manned Gemini space program. Can you imagine sitting in a capsule on top of one of these? Rockets had a tendency to blow up during or right after launch. Those astronauts had a tremendous amount of courage.

These are access panels that fold down from the wall to give access to various missile panels for maintenance. They were normally kept in the up position so the missile was always “On Alert.”

There are a couple of these doors throughout the complex. They weigh somewhere around 10–12 tons each. Once they close, large shafts extend and act like giant dowels to lock the door in place. No one gets in or out without the proper authorization.

This is the hinge of the doors that isolate the outside world from the underground launch complex. There are also doors like this at the silo and the command center. Even though these doors weigh several tons, they are balanced so well you can open and close them using just fingertip pressure.

One more shot of the door. I guess I was really impressed by them since I took a bunch of pictures.

We finally headed up the mountain to Adam Block’s observatory. He works in conjunction with the University of Arizona. There are several observatories on the mountain. Here is Fred as we prepared for our first night of imaging.

Adam up on the ladder opening the observatory door for the telescope.

Me and Adam in front of his 24" reflector.

Fred and Adam. Just to the right of the cabinet is the sheet Adam uses for taking his flat‑field images, which are used when processing the light frames.

Just after sunset with the observatory door open. The nights up there were brutally cold. The first night the wind was clipping along at about 25 kts. We went outside a couple of times to stay awake, and the temperature was down around 30 degrees. The dome does a great job of protecting the telescope from vibrations caused by the wind. After the second night Fred and I were pretty punchy — we just can't pull all‑nighters anymore.

Adam had some other visitors for a visual observing session and had to put the SBIG camera back on the scope.

We stayed in a fantastic dorm where visiting astronomers stay. This is the kitchen — very modern and clean.

The other side of the kitchen. We had to bring our own food, so Fred and I stopped at a grocery store just before we came up the mountain.

The hallway leading to the bedrooms.

Fred and I each had our own room even though they were designed for two people per room. The beds were very comfortable.

The observatory sits just shy of 10,000 feet. It was April and there was still snow on the ground and a chill in the air. This is one corner of our dorm.

The road coming down from the observatory to the dorm building.

This is the observatory we used with Adam. Across the street is a scope operated remotely from South Korea. There is also an observatory dedicated solely to searching for Near Earth Objects (NEOs). A fellow takes a couple of ten‑minute images of the same area of sky and compares them to see if anything moved. If an asteroid is observed, he inputs the coordinates into a database to determine whether it is already known or a new discovery. Either way, it can then be tracked and its orbit determined accurately to see if it poses a threat to Earth.

The white dome in the center is the one used by the South Koreans. The one in the distance is used to detect NEOs. The one on the right was not being used when we were there.

Here’s Fred on the afternoon after our first night of imaging. It was a long night and we got to bed around 6:00 A.M. Fred is making some focusing adjustments on the solar scope.

Adam's 24" telescope. It has now been replaced with a 36" telescope. Adam doesn't do many all-nighters anymore either. His telescope is set up to be run remotely. You can sign up for telescope time, select and image your chosen object. The images are then sent to you so you can do your own processing. There are a lot of companies that do this all over the world. You rent time remotely and you can get images that you would never been able to get otherwise. Not cheap, though :)

Adam getting the solar scope up and running. In the upper left of the monitor is a real-time image of the sun. He's working in the dome warm room, a seperate room inside the dome where you can sit and do all your imaging work without freezing to death in the middle of the night

From the summit looking out toward Oro Valley just on the north side of Mt. Lemon. From Mt. Lemon you can also see Kitt Peak Observatory off to the west

I like this picture a lot — a nice shot of an airliner flying overhead, taken through the dome door. I was still flying for American at the time