Palomar Observatory

Palomar Observatory

In 1930, famous American astronomer George Ellery Hale chose Palomar Mountain as the ideal spot in northern San Diego County to gaze into the sparkling night sky. After receiving a six million dollar grant from the Rockefeller Foundation, Hale built Palomar Observatory to better understand our universe. The observatory houses several telescopes that do everything from hunting for near-Earth asteroids to probing for distant galaxies.

Palomar Observatory's first operational telescope was the 18-inch Schmidt. It was one of the first telescopes used to survey the sky for supernovae, stars the shine extraordinarily bright as a result of catastrophic explosions. Researchers also used the telescope to search for comets and asteroids. The Schmidt telescope has found almost 50 comets, the most famous being Shoemaker-Levy 9, discovered in March 1993. The Schmidt telescope is no longer used for scientific research.

Several other famous telescopes are housed atop Palomar Mountain. The 200-inch Hale Telescope was the world's largest telescope from 1948 to 1993, and is still one of the largest used today. It saw first light in 1949 and continues to survey celestial bodies every night. Other telescopes include the Samuel Oschin Telescope and the 60-inch reflecting telescope, famous for discovering the first brown dwarf star.

The Palomar Observatory is owned and operated by the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). Though used primarily as a world-class research center, it is open to the public during the daytime. Visitors are free to visit the 200-inch dome in which the Hale Telescope is housed. They can also download a podcast for a self-guided tour, available on the observatory's Web site. The Visitors Center is open daily, and exhibits of astronomical photographs, Palomar discoveries, and spectra are available as well.

- Ray Lapena