Palomar Observatory [47664], at approximately 5,570 ft elevation, is
a privately owned observatory located in
San Diego
County, California
, 90 miles (145 km) southeast of
Pasadena's Mount Wilson Observatory
, in the Palomar Mountain Range
. It is owned and operated by the California
Institute of Technology
. Research time is granted to Caltech and its
research partners which includes the Jet Propulsion
Laboratory
, and Cornell University
.. The observatory currently consists of three
large telescopes: the 200 inch (5.08 m)
Hale
telescope
, the
48 inch (1.22 m) Samuel
Oschin telescope, and a 60 inch (1.52 m) reflecting telescope. In
addition, the
Palomar
Testbed Interferometer and other instruments are located at
this observatory. An 18 inch (457 millimeter)
Schmidt telescope, Palomar Observatory's
first telescope, dating from 1936, is no longer operational.
Hale's Vision For Large Telescopes and Palomar Observatory
Astronomer
George Ellery Hale,
whose vision created the Palomar Observatory, built the world's
largest telescope four times. He published an article in the April
1928 issue of
Harper's Magazine
called "The Possibilities of Large Telescopes". This article
contained Hale's vision for building of what was to become the
200-inch Palomar reflector; it was an invitation to the American
public learn about how large telescopes could help answer questions
relating to the fundamental nature of the universe. Hale hoped that
the American people would understand and support his project. In
fact the 200-inch telescope was the most important telescope in the
world from 1949 until 1992 when the Keck I telescope (at
approximately 10 meters - 387 inches) on Mauna Kea in Hawaii
became the world's largest.
Hale followed this article with a letter to the International
Education Board (later absorbed into the
General Education Board) of the
Rockefeller Foundation dated
April 28, 1928, in which he requested funding for this project. In
his letter, Hale stated:
"No method of advancing science is so productive as the development
of new and more powerful instruments and methods of research. A
larger telescope would not only furnish the necessary gain in light
space-penetration and photographic resolving power, but permit the
application of ideas and devices derived chiefly from the recent
fundamental advances in physics and chemistry."
Etymology
The word
palomar is from the Spanish
language, dating back from the time of Spanish California
, and means pigeon house (in the same sense
as henhouse). The name may be in reference to the
large shoals of
pigeons that can be seen
during the spring and autumn months atop Palomar Mountain or
reminiscent of an old pigeon-raising facility built there by the
Spaniards.
The Hale Telescope
The 200-inch (5.08 m) telescope is named after astronomer
George Ellery Hale. It was built by Caltech with
a 6 million dollar grant from the Rockefeller Foundation, using a
Pyrex blank manufactured by
Corning Glass Works. The telescope (the
largest in the world at that time) saw
first light January 26, 1949
targeting
NGC 2261. The American astronomer
Edwin Powell Hubble, perhaps the
most important observer of the 20th century, was given the honor of
being the first astronomer to use the telescope.
Astronomers using the Hale Telescope have discovered distant
objects at the edges of the known universe called
quasars and have given us the first direct evidence
of stars in distant galaxies. They have studied the structure and
chemisty of intergalactic clouds leading to an understanding of the
synthesis of elements in the universe and have discovered thousands
of
asteroids.
A one-tenth-scale
engineering model of the telescope at Corning Community College in
Corning, New
York
, home of the Corning Glass Works (now Corning
Incorporated) was used to discover at least one minor planet,
(34419) Corning
Ronald Florence wrote a history of the instrument's construction,
titled
The Perfect Machine, ISBN 0-06-018205-9.
Richard Preston wrote a critically acclaimed
non-fiction book about the Hale telescope and the astronomers who
have used it, called
First Light.
Architecture and design
According to the Observatory's Public Affairs Office,
Russell W. Porter was primarily responsible for the
striking Art Deco architecture of the Observatory's buildings, most
notably the dome of the 200 inch Hale Telescope. Porter was
also responsible for much of the technical design of the Hale
Telescope and Schmidt Cameras, producing a series of remarkable
cross-section engineering drawings that are considered among the
finest examples of such work. Porter worked on the designs in
collaboration with many engineers and Caltech committee members.
The iconic, gleaming white building on Palomar Mountain that houses
the 200 inch Hale Telescope is considered by many to be "The
Cathedral of Astronomy".
Telescopes and instruments
Major instruments at the Palomar Observatory include:
- 200-inch Hale Telescope
(Project started in 1928, and active since first light in 1948) (see
above)
- A 60" (1.5 m) f/8.75 telescope in the Oscar Mayer Building. It
was dedicated in 1970 to take some of the load off of the Hale
Telescope. This telescope discovered the first brown dwarf star.
- The 48" (1.22 m) Samuel
Oschin Telescope . The dwarf planet
Eris was discovered by Caltech
astronomer Mike Brown using this instrument. It was this object
that triggered the discussions in the international astronomy
community that led to Pluto being re-classified as a dwarf
planet.
- A 24" robotic telescope completed in January 2006. It is used
to monitor the weather on Saturn's largest moon, Titan, and to
follow up on observations of moving objects in the solar system
discovered with the Samuel Oschin telescope.
- An 18" (0.4 m) Schmidt camera.
Now retired, in 1936 this became the first operational telescope at
the Observatory. Comet
Shoemaker-Levy 9 was discovered with this instrument in 1993.
In the 1930s a Caltech astronomer named Fritz Zwicky discovered over 100 supernovae (exploding stars) in other galaxies
with this telescope and gathered the first evidence for dark
matter.
- The Palomar Planet Search
Telescope From 2003 - 2008 this small robotic telescope was
dedicated to the search for planets around other stars using the
transit method.
- The Palomar Testbed
Interferometer a multi-telescope instrument that permits
astronomers to make very high resolution measurements of the sizes
and positions of objects in space. The shapes of some bright stars
have been measured with the PTI.
Palomar Observatory Sky Surveys
The
Palomar
Observatory Sky Survey (POSS), sponsored by the National
Geographic
institute, was completed in 1958 (The first plates
were shot in November 1948 and the last in April 1958). This
survey was performed using 14 inch
2 or (6
degree)
2 blue-sensitive (Kodak
103a-O) and red-sensitive (Kodak 103a-E) photographic plates on the
48 inch (1.22 m) Samuel Oschin Schmidt
reflecting telescope. The survey covered the sky
from a
declination of +90 degrees
(
celestial north pole) to -27 degrees
and all
right ascensions and had a
sensitivity to +22
magnitude
(about 1 million times fainter than the limit of human vision). A
southern extension extending the sky coverage of the POSS to -33
degrees
declination was shot in 1957 -
1958. The final POSS consisted of 937 plate pairs.
J.B. Whiteoak, an Australian radio astronomer, used the same
instrument to extend this survey further south to about -45 degrees
declination, using the same field
centers as the corresponding northern declination zones. Unlike the
POSS, the
Whiteoak extension
consisted only of red-sensitive (Kodak 103a-E) photographic
plates.
The Second Palomar Observatory Sky Survey (POSS II) was performed
in the 1980s and 1990s that made use of better, faster films and an
upgraded telescope. The Oschin Schmidt was given an achromatic
corrector and provisions for autoguiding. Images were recorded in
three wavelengths: blue (IIIaJ), red (IIIaF) and near infrared
(IVN) plates, respectively. Observers on POSS II included C.
Brewer, D. Griffiths, W. McKinley, D. Mendenhall, K. Rykoski, J.
Phinney and
Jean Mueller (who
discovered over 100 supernovae by comparing the POSS I and POSS II
plates). Ms Mueller also discovered several comets during the
course of POSS II and the bright Comet Wilson 1986 was discovered
by then graduate student C. Wilson early in the survey.
Until the completion of the Two Micron All Sky Survey (
2MASS), POSS was the most extensive wide-field sky
survey ever. When completed, the
Sloan Digital Sky Survey will
surpass the POSS in depth, although the POSS covers almost 2.5
times as much area on the sky. POSS also exists in digitized form
(i.e., the photographic plates were scanned), both in photographic
form as the
Digitized Sky
Survey (DSS) and in catalog form as the Minnesota Automated
Plate Scanner (MAPS) Catalog.
POSS II was followed by the Palomar
Quasar Equatorial Survey Team
(QUEST) Variability survey. This survey yielded results that were
used by several projects, including the
Near-Earth Asteroid Tracking
project. Another program that used the QUEST results discovered
90377 Sedna on 14 November 2003, and
around 40
Kuiper belt objects. Other
programs that share the camera are
Shri
Kulkarni's search for
gamma-ray
bursts (this takes advantage of the automated telescope's
ability to react as soon as a burst is seen and take a series of
snapshots of the fading burst),
Richard Ellis' search for
supernovae to test whether the
universe's expansion is accelerating or
not, and
S. George Djorgovski's
quasar search.
The camera for the Palomar QUEST Survey was a mosaic of 112
Charge-coupled devices (CCDs)
covering the whole (4 degree by 4 degree) field of view of the
Schmidt telescope, the largest CCD mosaic used in an astronomical
camera when built. This instrument was used to produce The Big
Picture, the largest astronomical photograph ever produced..
The Big
Picture is on display at Griffith Observatory
.
Current research
Current research programs on the 200-inch Hale Telescope cover the
range of the observable universe including studies on near-Earth
asteroids, outer solar system planets, Kuiper Belt Objects, star
formation, exoplanets , gamma-ray bursts, black holes, quasars and
much more.
The 48-inch Samuel Oschin Schmidt Telescope is actively working on
a new sky survey, the Palomar Transient Factory.
The 60-inch telescope is used for a variety of projects including
follow-up observations for the Palomar Transient Factory and is a
rapid response telescope for
gamma-ray
bursts.
Clearest images
In
September 2007, a team of astronomers
from the US
and the
UK
released some of the clearest pictures ever taken
of outer space. The pictures were
obtained through the use of a new hybrid "
Lucky imaging" and "
adaptive optics" system which sharpens
pictures taken from the Palomar Observatory. The resolution
attained exceeds that of the
Hubble Space Telescope by a factor of
two.
Directors
Public access
The Palomar Observatory is an active research facility. However,
parts of it are open to the public during the day. Visitors can
take self-guided tours of 200-inch (5.08 m) telescope daily from 9
a.m. to 4 p.m. Guided tours of the 200-inch Hale Telescope dome and
observing area are available Saturdays and Sundays from April
through October. Details are available at the Observatory's web
site, http://palomar-observatory.org. There is a visitor's center
and a gift shop on the grounds. Behind-the-scenes tours for the
public are offered through the Friends of Palomar
[47665] support group and the
Reuben H. Fleet Science Center.
The
observatory is located off State Route 76 in northern
San Diego
County, California, is two hours' drive from downtown San Diego
, and three hours' drive from central Los Angeles
( UCLA
, LAX
airport
).
In pop culture
The band
Wellwater Conspiracy's
1997 debut album,
Declaration of Conformity,
contains a track entitled "Palomar Observatory." It is the last
track on the album and completely instrumental.
It is likely the
track title was chosen by singer/drummer Matt Cameron, who grew up in San Diego near the observatory. Also, Canadian band
The Rheostatics 11th track from their effort Whale Music is
entitled Palomar. The song depicts a man named Palomar on the top
of a mount, cleaning his lenses with saline waters. Palomar
assembles his kaleidoscope in his lonely observatory. The song is
an extremely visual characterization of a man on a mountain and his
relationship with his best friend, a dog.
Italo Calvino's 1983 novel
Mr. Palomar, which features a
man reflecting on how he observes the world, is named after the
observatory. Palomar is mentioned in the first episode of season 2
of
The X-Files, "
Little Green Men".
Fox Mulder intimates that an
ELF crawled through the window of
Hale's billiard room and told him to build the observatory.
Palomar Observatory and light pollution
Much of the surrounding region of Southern California has adopted
shielded lighting to reduce the
light
pollution that would potentially affect the observatory.
See also
References
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