We recently had the opportunity to visit and take a tour of the Mount Palomar Observatory, located in the Palomar Mountain range in San Diego County, California.

The sheer size of the structure doesn’t hit you until you are right up under it.  The massive 137 by 135 foot dome stands out in sharp contrast with the plant life on the mountain.  Asphalt roads leave the dome in several directions, and split off to several other domes on the several hundred acre property.

The 200+ inch Hale Telescope held the title of the world’s largest for years, and remains one of the leading tools used by astronomers today.  The cost of running the facility tops $10,000 per night, and with the telescope in operation over 300 days of the year, the cost of running it is no small sum.  The majority of funding comes from Caltech as well as other institutions in the United States and abroad.  The Hale telescope was built with a grant of about $6 million from the Rockefeller foundation in the 1940s.

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