Wednesday, August 11, 2010

NRAO - National Radio Astronomy Observatory

Sunday we took a trip into New Mexico. This was the first time my family had been in there. It was a great time. The views were amazing, because of all the rain this time of the year, so many things are green. It was also raining a fair amount of the time on the way out. We were headed for NRAO - VLA. Which translates to "National Radio Astronomy Observatory - Very Large Array" You may have seen it already yourself on TV if you have seen the movie Contact. It was pretty quiet. There were not many people. You can see some of the images below.



This one one Radio Telescope in for repair. Notice that there is a triangular shape at the bottom left of the enclosure. This is the covering over a normal sized door. These dishes are the size of a baseball diamond on the in field.


This is the back view of a telescope.


The front telescope of a few in a row.


A cool looking picture of the array. From the air, they are in a "Y" shape and are 27 of them. 9 on each leg. Check out this link for an aerial map on Google.


Storm rolling in from the West.

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