picture of seti telescope "big picture"

[JigPu]

oh man, don't get me started on "Contact". First off she worked at the VLA (very large array) in arizona i believe. You have to understand that in radio astronomy you are picking up very faint radio signals, there is no way she would be next to them with the radio transciever, that would kill it. laptop? no way, they don't even allow regular cars within miles of it, because the sparks from the plugs generate too much interference. Plus there are no canyons near the VLA, its all very flat. </rant>

Actually, you can drive pretty dang close to the VLA. This summer I went there and you drive along the highway for a LOOONNG way until dishes start appearing. They're like 3 miles off from the highway, but if you drive to their visitor center, you're parked only a quarter to half mile from the closest dish

Definatly the highlight of my year Will try to get some pics for here since this is turning into one of those threads
JigPu

 

[funzie]

18.34 North Latitude and 66.75 West Longitude. Oh and ookabooka its Arecibo.

 

[JigPu]

One of 18 Dishes (railing surrounding dish ~4 feet tall):

Electronics Room and Description:

Antenna Repair Center (look at the cab of the truck on right for a guess at average human size):

The Panorama 2.39MB
(56Kers, open a second window and have it open there... it'll take a while to load )

JigPu

 

[adrian nelson]

cool pics
they also made a part of the movie 2010 there too i beilve

 

[ookabooka]

Actually, you can drive pretty dang close to the VLA. This summer I went there and you drive along the highway for a LOOONNG way until dishes start appearing. They're like 3 miles off from the highway, but if you drive to their visitor center, you're parked only a quarter to half mile from the closest dish

Definatly the highlight of my year Will try to get some pics for here since this is turning into one of those threads
JigPu

Yeah I know I was exagerating. It is definately true though, I have a picture of a sign that is like a no-smoking sign, but with a sparkplug, that sign is soo funny, i laugh everytime i see it. Also, I know at NRAO they have a guy whos only job is to seek and destroy radio sources. Turns out the number one culprit is a refrigerator that is about to die. For some reason it spits out a lot of RF energy before dying. So Wess (the guy that used to have the job, he switched jobs there) would go up to someone's house, ring their door bell, and tell them that since their fridge is going to die in less than 6months, he would like to buy them a new one. It is cheaper to buy them a new fridge than loose all that observing time by far.

edit: ah yes, it is Arecibo isn't it. It was like 2 in the mornin when I made that post, lysdexia(dyslexia. . har har har) was kicking in.