peak (6,126 feet 【1,867 metres】) in Cleveland National Forest, southern California, U.S. It lies about 40 miles (65 km) north-northeast of San Diego. The nearly 2,000-acre (800-hectare) Palomar Mountain State Park extends up the mountain slope, and the Palomar Observatory (operated by the California Institute of Technology), one of the Hale Observatories, occupies a 720-acre (290-hectare) plateau at the top and can be reached by the Highway to the Stars. The peak was once called Smith Mountain but reverted to its Mexican name, Palomar (meaning “place of the pigeons”), in 1901.