Category: Mojave Desert history and places

The stories of the Mojave are found in its roads, rivers, mining camps, railroads, settlements, public lands, and overlooked places. These entries bring together records, maps, archives, field observations, and photographs to show how a connected desert region has changed over time.

Table Mountain Observatory

Table Mountain Observatory

Table Mountain Observatory, usually called TMO, is the astronomical part of NASA JPL’s Table Mountain Facility above Wrightwood in the San Gabriel Mountains. The facility overlooks the Mojave Desert about 60 miles northeast of JPL’s Pasadena campus, at roughly 7,500 feet in elevation. Its altitude, mountain setting, and distance from Los Angeles air pollution make it well suited to observing and atmospheric research. [1]

The scientific history of the site reaches back to 1926, when the Smithsonian Institution established an observatory there for solar irradiance studies. JPL began using the mountain for spacecraft solar-panel testing in the late 1950s and early 1960s. In 1962, JPL acquired the U.S. Forest Service lease, built TM-1, installed a 16-inch optical telescope, and achieved first light on August 1. [2]

Table Mountain Facility has never been only an astronomy site. Its work has included solar testing, spacecraft calibration, atmospheric lidar, ozone and water-vapor measurement, and instrument-comparison campaigns. Long-term lidar research has measured stratospheric ozone, temperature, aerosols, tropospheric ozone, and water vapor. [1][3][4]

A major modern instrument is Pomona College’s 1-meter, 40-inch telescope, shared with JPL. The telescope has a 40.5-inch mirror and supports CCD imaging, filter wheels, polarimetry, near-infrared work, and adaptive optics. Built between 1982 and 1985, and improved with new optics in 1996, it has served both student observing and research. [5]

Table Mountain Observatory is a mountain-edge science station where the San Gabriels meet the desert sky. It belongs to the same regional landscape as Cajon Pass, Big Pines, Angeles Crest, Wrightwood, and the Mojave overlook country, though its purpose is scientific rather than recreational.

Sources and Further Reading

[1] NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Atmospheric Lidar Group. Table Mountain – TMF

[2] NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Table Mountain Facility: 1961-1962

[3] NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Atmospheric Lidar Group. JPL Table Mountain Atmospheric Lidar Group

[4] Network for the Detection of Atmospheric Composition Change. Table Mountain Facility, California

[5] Pomona College. Table Mountain Observatory

Saying Something

Beginning photographers are drawn to cemeteries because they offer strong subjects without needing access, models, money, or complicated logistics.

A cemetery gives a novice several useful things at once: quiet, stillness, interesting light, readable shapes, texture, inscriptions, age, symbolism, and emotion. The subject does not move, so the photographer can slow down and practice composition, focus, depth of field, close-ups, shadows, and framing. Headstones, fences, trees, paths, statues, flowers, flags, and weathered surfaces naturally create visual structure.

They also feel meaningful. A beginner often wants photographs to say something, not merely show something. Cemeteries come preloaded with themes: memory, loss, time, ancestry, mystery, abandonment, faith, and neglect. That can make the pictures feel more profound than the photographer’s technical skill can yet produce elsewhere.

There is also a long-standing romantic and gothic pull. Old cemeteries provide atmosphere: leaning stones, carved angels, iron gates, winter grass, late-afternoon light. They can look dramatic even when photographed simply.

But that is also the trap. Cemetery photography can become easy symbolism: a broken stone, a skull, an angel, a name, a sunset. The best work usually goes beyond mood. It notices evidence: who is buried there, how the graves are arranged, what materials were used, which names repeat, which markers are cared for, which are forgotten, and what the cemetery says about the community around it.

So beginners are drawn to cemeteries because cemeteries are accessible, patient, visually rich, emotionally charged, and historically layered. They make it easier to feel that a photograph has weight.

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