This consisted of 112 CCDs, each 2400×600 pixels (161 megapixels total), arranged in four columns of 28 (with gaps between), the largest CCD mosaic used in an astronomical camera at the time.

About half of the large photographic glass plate negatives exposed on the telescope, some 19,000 in all, had been accumulating in the sub-basement of the Robinson building at the California Institute of Technology since 1949.

In 2002, astronomer Jean Mueller approached Richard Ellis, the director of the Caltech Optical Observatories, to volunteer to the task of organizing the Oschin Telescope plate archive.

Given the go-ahead, she recruited eleven volunteers from the Mount Wilson Observatory Association (MWOA) and the Los Angeles Astronomical Society (LAAS), and the team then spent 13 weekends (more than one thousand hours) poring over the stacks, placing plates in protective sleeves, and packing them in more than 500 boxes that were transported to Palomar.

All of the volunteers were presented with the gift of having asteroids named after them, compliments of Carolyn S. Shoemaker: 10028 Bonus, 12680 Bogdanovich, 13914 Galegant, 16452 Goldfinger, 19173 Virginiaterése, 20007 Marybrown, 21148 Billramsey, 22294 Simmons, 27706 Strogen, and 29133 Vargas.

In June 2011 it was reported the telescope discovered 6 supernovae located 8 billion light years from Earth whose composition lacks hydrogen.