PALOMAR OBSERVATORY

This 1948 video shows the opening of the Mount Palomar Observatory, near San Diego. For decades the astronomical observatory located on Mount Palomar, about 40 miles (65 km) north-northeast of San Diego, Calif. The observatory is the site of the famous Hale telescope, a reflector with a 5-metre (200-inch) aperture that has proved instrumental in cosmological research. Built in 1948 and named in honour of the American astronomer George Ellery Hale, this high-magnification telescope was the largest instrument of its kind until 1976. Other important instruments at Palomar include a wide-angle Schmidt telescope, which has a 0.9-metre (36-inch) aperture and 1.2-metre (48-inch) mirror. This instrument was used in the early 1950s to produce the monumental National Geographic SocietyPalomar Observatory Sky Survey, a star atlas containing photographs of more stars and nebulae than had been cataloged in any previous collection. It was employed again during the mid-1980s for a photographic mapping of the entire sky. The Palomar Observatory was founded in 1948 by the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena and was operated jointly with the Mount Wilson Observatory as the Hale Observatories until 1980. Additional reading