Mount Lemmon Survey

The Mount Lemmon Survey is one of the most productive asteroid-hunting programs in the world, operating from the same mountain that hosts Mount Lemmon Observatory northeast of Tucson, Arizona.

About Mount Lemmon Survey

Known by its observatory code G96, MLS is part of the Catalina Sky Survey and is operated by Steward Observatory at the University of Arizona. It sits at 2,791 metres in the Santa Catalina Mountains, the same elevation and range as Mount Lemmon Observatory.

Telescopes & research

The survey uses a 1.52-metre (60-inch) Cassegrain reflector fitted with a 10,560-by-10,560-pixel camera at its f/1.6 prime focus, giving it a wide five-square-degree field of view. Its primary mission is discovering near-Earth objects, and it ranks among the top discoverers on the Minor Planet Center's chart, having contributed to the discovery of more than 160,000 numbered minor planets.

Location & getting there

Mount Lemmon Survey operates from the Santa Catalina Mountains at 2,791 metres, in the same location as Mount Lemmon Observatory northeast of Tucson, Arizona, in the North America region of the United States.

Visiting Mount Lemmon Survey

As a dedicated survey telescope, MLS does not run its own public tour program. Visitors interested in the mountain's astronomy can instead check the Mount Lemmon SkyCenter for public tours of the wider observatory site.

See your named star from here

A survey built to scan the sky for faint, moving objects works from the same coordinate system as your named star's position. Name a star and look up its exact right ascension and declination in the catalogue to see where it falls relative to Mount Lemmon's sky.