The telescopes and instruments at the observatory are designed and employed specifically for studying the activities and phenomena of the Sun.

[1] The location at Big Bear Lake is optimal due to the clarity of the sky and the presence of a body of water.

The cool lake provides a natural inversion that greatly reduces ground-layer turbulence and stabilizes images taken by the telescope (the water provides a cooling effect on the atmosphere surrounding the building and helps eliminate ground heat radiation waves that normally would cause optical aberrations).

The main observatory building is in the open waters of the lake with an approximately 200-meter (660 ft) causeway extending south from the north shore.

However, to resolve the fundamental scale in the Sun's atmosphere (photon mean free path of 100 km (62 mi) at the Solar surface), an aperture of at least 1.5 m (59 in) is required.

The telescopes and instruments at the observatory are designed and employed specifically for studying the activities and phenomena of the Sun.

Eventually, the university decided to change the focus of what had been a solar-physics slot in the astrophysics department and to look for another organization to take over the observatory.