Palomar Mountain-DSS
Image: Wikimedia Commons
The Palomar Mountain-DSS entry marks the survey data associated with Palomar Mountain in San Diego County, California, home of the Digitized Sky Survey rather than a single instrument you can walk up to.
About Palomar Mountain-DSS
The Digitized Sky Survey (DSS) is a digitized version of photographic astronomical surveys carried out using the Palomar and UK Schmidt telescopes, with the plates digitized at the Space Telescope Science Institute. It includes the Second Palomar Observatory Sky Survey (POSS-II), produced by the California Institute of Technology, and the related Digital Palomar Observatory Sky Survey (DPOSS) image database and catalogs, processed at Caltech, along with the Palomar-Norris Sky Catalog (PNSC).
History
Funding for the surveys came from the National Science Foundation, the National Geographic Society, the Sloan Foundation, the Samuel Oschin Foundation, and the Eastman Kodak Corporation, reflecting the scale of the effort to photograph and digitize the entire northern sky.
Telescopes & research
The survey covers the northern sky in three bands, with typical limiting magnitudes of about magnitude 21 to 21.5 in green light, 21 in red light, and 19.5 in infrared, making it a foundational reference dataset still used by astronomers today. It is operated by the California Institute of Technology.
Location & getting there
This entry is associated with the Palomar Mountain site in San Diego County, California, part of the North America region on Star Register's map, the same mountain that hosts Palomar Observatory itself.
Visiting Palomar Mountain-DSS
The DSS is a data archive rather than a place with its own visiting hours; anyone wanting to see the telescopes behind it should look at Palomar Observatory's own visitor information via Caltech.
See your named star from here
Sky surveys like the DSS work by cataloguing the sky using coordinates, exactly the kind of precise reference a named star from Star Register comes with. Name a star, or browse the catalogue of stars already named.
Opening hours and public-visit programs vary by season. Check Google Maps for current times before you travel.
