Palomar Observatory Astronomy and Scientific Discovery

Driving to an internationally famous facility for advanced scientific research and discovery should look a lot different than a camping trip to a California State Park forest for an afternoon of lake fishing. As the journey winds around and around the roads leading to the top of Palomar mountain, most people don't know they are very likely traveling roads previously traveled by a mirror that weighs three times what their car weighs and contains one of the most precisely manufactured and well maintained surfaces on the planet.

But there is a point along that road where a huge white domed building becomes visible, and immediately becomes the center of attention, as it should. It is the Palomar Observatory, a research facility in the northern region of San Diego County approximately 120 miles southeast of Los Angeles. While the Palomar Observatory it isn't quite in the middle of nowhere, for most people, if they were on their way to nowhere, Palomar mountain would be a good place to start.

The reason for this is simple. Like all facilities which require optical clarity at night, light pollution is a constant problem, and something which Palomar has been investing particular effort in trying to overcome. Gazing deep into the distant reaches of the universe requires both precision and patience. Photographic exposures of objects at such extreme distances must be compiled over large amounts of time, and the presence of even the slightest nearby light source can interfere with the ability of the Palomar apparatus to obtain high quality images of deep space.

But, when light pollution isn't a problem, the Palomar Observatory is routinely at the forefront of astronomical research. As Southern California scientific research facilities go, Palomar definitely ranks very near the top of the list, if not at the top. Palomar is home to the awe-inspiring Hale 200-inch telescope named for George Ellery Hale, whose efforts were instrumental in obtaining the funding for the Palomar facilities. Palomar has four other very large telescopes including the 60-inch telescope in the Oscar Mayer building at the Palomar facility. The 60-inch telescope was one of the instruments used to confirm the existence of an astronomical phenomenon known as a "brown dwarf," kind of a cross between a star and a very large planet, in 1995.

Palomar is also equipped with the 48-inch Samuel Oschin telescope which, in 2002, discovered Quaoar, a frozen 800 mile diameter planetoid in the Kuiper belt, the region of space that borders the outer edge of our solar system. Quaoar is the largest object discovered in our solar system since the planet Pluto was discovered by Clyde Tombaugh in 1930. The 48-inch telescope also discovered Sedna, which is the most distant object known orbiting our sun.

The 24-inch telescope is the newest telescope at the Palomar facility, and it has been in operation since January of 2006. Scientists are optimistic that this newest instrument will rapidly match its counterparts in new and interesting discoveries.

The first operational telescope at the Palomar Observatory was the venerable 18-inch Schmidt telescope, originally installed in 1936. One of the Schmidt telescope's most amazing discoveries was a new comet. This discovery led to one of the most spectacular real-time observations in the history of astronomical science when, in July of 1994, pieces of Shoemaker-Levy 9, a comet thought to have been torn to pieces by gravitational forces, collided with the planet Jupiter, causing enormous explosions recorded near the planet surface. Although the 18-inch Schmidt telescope is no longer used for scientific research, it's place in the history of the Palomar Observatory is assured.

Then there is the exciting work being done by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at Palomar with a new kind of telescope called the Palomar Testbed Interferometer. This kind of telescope collects light from multiple sources and recombines it in a central facility for analysis. Since the distance between these buildings is nearly 110 meters, this means the Testbed Interferometer is essentially the largest telescope at the Observatory. Most of the telescopes at Palomar are also experimenting with a technology known as "Adaptive Optics" which uses lasers to calibrate the telescopes such that it can effectively remove the blurring caused by the Earth's atmosphere in images recorded by the telescopes. This makes it possible to obtain much higher quality images than would otherwise be possible with a ground-based telescope and camera. The distance between the smaller buildings also makes it possible to obtain much higher resolution images as well, something which has value in a number of scientific pursuits, not the least of which is determining other places to look for interesting astronomical phenomena.

There is little doubt that if Palomar isn't the most famous observatory, it is certainly one of the most famous, and it is a credit to both science and its region. There are very few places in the world near an internationally recognized and famous scientific research facility such as the Palomar Observatory, and the opportunity to tour and learn about the numerous magnificent feats of engineering, academic and scientific precision at this facility is something that should not be missed.