Fenton Hill Observatory

[2] Los Alamos National Laboratory has a use agreement with the Forest Service for the 30 acres (120,000 m2), which is located near Fenton Lake State Park.

A number of potential users of the site at Los Alamos met in late 1995 to propose making Fenton Hill into a research station for astronomy, geosciences, and educational outreach programs.

A Fenton Hill Observatory steering committee was formed from Los Alamos staff and potential outside users.

The Los Alamos branch of the University of California Institute for Nuclear and Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology (INPAC) supported construction.

In 1973 the Vela satellite, which was built by Los Alamos to monitor atmospheric nuclear tests, recorded brief bursts of gamma-rays of cosmic origin coming from random directions on the sky.

[1] Fenton Hill Observatory ran the Earthwatch Student Challenge Awards Program, funded by the Durfee Foundation, during which eight highly talented high school students came and used portable telescopes, CCD cameras and computers to determine some of the astronomical characteristics of the Fenton Hill site and other potential sites in the Jemez Mountains, such as Pajarito Peak.

When in event alert mode, REACT automatically swings around to take a series of one-minute exposures to catch any optical signals coinciding with gamma-ray transients detected by other instruments.

ROTSE can use telemetry data from the NASA Compton Gamma Ray Observatory to direct its array of cameras toward burst events as they occur.

While in monitoring mode, RAPTOR takes two consecutive 30-second exposures through its two wide-field telescopes and analyzes the resulting digital images.

[8] The Milagro gamma-ray observatory is situated in a 5-million gallon pond that was originally used by the Hot Dry Rock project.