Palomar Observatory

Palomar Observatory

Astronomical observatory on Mount Palomar, near San Diego, California, U.S., site of the famous Hale telescope, a reflecting telescope with a 200-in. (5-m) aperture that has proved instrumental in cosmological research. Built in 1948 and named in honour of George Ellery Hale (1868–1938), it was the largest instrument of its kind for almost 30 years. Founded in 1948 by California Institute of Technology, the observatory was operated jointly with the Mount Wilson Observatory as the Hale Observatories until 1980.

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Palomar Observatory 

(Mount Palomar Observatory), a scientific institution of the California Institute of Technology (USA). Located 220 km south of Pasadena, Calif., at an elevation of 1,700 m., it houses the world’s largest reflector, with a mirror measuring 508 cm in diameter (installed in 1949), and a 122-cm Schmidt telescope, the second largest in the world (installed in 1948). It also has a 51-cm reflector and Schmidt cameras with 46-cm and 20-cm apertures. Its principal areas of research are extremely remote objects of the universe (galaxies, quasars and other quasistellar objects) and spectroscopic studies of stars and nebulae. In 1949 it was administratively merged with Mount Wilson Observatory. Palomar Observatory compiles and publishes a photographic atlas of a significant portion of the sky as well as atlases of galaxies.