A group of optical observatories for night-time astronomy, managed by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy on behalf of the US National Science Foundation. NOAO was founded in 1982 and currently has three divisions: Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, Chile; Kitt Peak National Observatory, Arizona; and the Community Science and Data Center (CSDC), which is the US partner in the Gemini Observatory. NOAO’s headquarters are in Tucson, Arizona.

http://www.noao.edu/ Official NOAO website.