About Palomar Observatory, a world class research center

Palomar Observatory is owned and operated by the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and administered by the Caltech Optical Observatories.It is located atop Palomar Mountain in north San Diego County,California.Local businesses and communities are known to install shielded lighting to preserve the Observatory's viewshed.The Observatory was founded by George Ellery Hale (1868-1938),who was basically an early heliophysicist and discovered the Sun's magnetic fields.Hale oversaw the design,funding and construction of the 200 inch Hale Telescope for the rest of his life.Completed and named in his honor posthumously,it was the world's largest telescope for 45 years.He also played a leading role in the establishment of the Yerkes and Mount Wilson Observatories. Today,there are three active research telescopes at Palomar:the 200 in/5.1 m Hale Telescope;the 48 inch/1.21 m Samuel Oschin Telescope;and the 60 inch/1.5 m telescope.The latter two,plus a robotic camera,constitute the Zwicky Transient Facility,which is dedicated to the search for and sourcing of astronomical optical transients.It is a wide-scale sky optical survey.* Palomar is a world class center of astronomy and astrophysics research with astronomers and astrophysicists from Caltech and other domestic and international partners.It operates every clear night and is considered an iconic facility for scientific advancement;instrument development;and student training,the Observatory said.* Besides the three research telescopes,there are three instrumentation projects ongoing:Gattini IR,a near infrared transient survey project;PARVI,a star radial velocity measurement project;and the Next Generation Palomar Spectrograph (NGPS).Besides Caltech,Observatory associates include Yale University;NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory-Caltech;and the National Optical Observatories of China (NAOC).