Jean Mueller

Jean Mueller (born 1950) is an American astronomer and discoverer of comets, minor planets, and a large number of supernovas at the U.S. Palomar Observatory in California.

In 1983, she became the first woman to operate the historic Hooker telescope at Mt. Wilson Observatory, and was the first woman hired as a telescope operator at Palomar Observatory in 1985.

The Second Palomar Observatory Sky Survey (POSS II) got underway in August 1985, with the first of the 14" photographic glass plates being pulled off the Palomar's Samuel Oschin telescope (then called the 48-inch Schmidt Camera). Jean Mueller was hired as the 48-Inch Night Assistant in July of that year, and worked in the capacity as observer and telescope operator for the duration. She took over 5500 photographic plates and had the honor of setting the telescope and removing the very last plate from the historic Schmidt Camera on June 3, 2000, as well as discovering her very last supernova, 2000cm, on that same night.

Jean Mueller spent hundreds of hours (in her spare time) scanning POSS II plates under high magnification looking for comets, fast-moving asteroids, and supernovae on an X/Y stage that held the 1 mm thick glass plates. Mueller would sometimes mark over a hundred galaxies recorded on a single POSS II plate to hunt for supernova candidates. She would then compare these plates with the first Palomar Sky Survey (POSS I) of similar fields. It was during the years of the POSS II project that Jean Mueller made all of her discoveries.

Working at Palomar Observatory, she has discovered a total of 15 comets, including 7 periodic comets 120P/Mueller, 131P/Mueller, 136P/Mueller, 149P/Mueller, 173P/Mueller, 188P/LINEAR-Mueller, 190P/Mueller, and 8 non-periodic comets.

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