Mount Laguna Observatory

The Mount Laguna Observatory is an astronomical observatory east of the Californian city of San Diego. It is located in the Cleveland National Forest in the Laguna Mountains, near a village on Mount Laguna. It was established on June 19, 1968 at an altitude of 1859 meters and was inaugurated in the summer of the same year at a meeting of the largest astronomical association in the world, the Astronomical Society of the Pacific.

Today the observatory is used mainly for academic purposes. It is owned by the San Diego State University, which uses it in cooperation with the University of Illinois at Urbana -Champaign and the University of Kansas.

Currently, the Observatory has three major telescopes:

• MLO Telescope: A Cassegrain telescope with a diameter of the primary mirror of 1.06 meters ( originally 1.02 meters). It was built in 1966 by Astro Mechanics and stood until 1981 at the Observatory of the University of Illinois.
• Clifford Smith Telescope: A telescope with a primary mirror 0.6 meters in diameter. It was built by the Astronomy Department of the SDSU and used from 1961 to 1966 on the campus of the University. After various adjustments it was installed in 1971 at the Mount Laguna Observatory.
• Reginald Buller Visitors' Telescope: A telescope with a diameter of the primary mirror of 0.52 meters. It was built in 1950 by JW Fecker and came SDSU as a donation from Regina Buller. 1988 was installed at MLO. It is open to the public and is primarily used by students.

Another telescope is currently under construction. The Phillips Claud Telescope will, following completion of a primary mirror with a diameter of 1.26 meters and thus be the great telescope of this observatory and one of the largest in the region.