Beyond the visible - pushing science forward

[Jochen Fromm-5]

Just saw this nice video about the VLA
http://vimeo.com/70554007

The Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array is
located near Socorro, NW, that is to
say it should not be very far from Santa Fe
and Albuquerque.

Have you been at this scientific landmark?
Unfortunately, the National Radio Astronomy
Observatory (NRAO) it is closed due to the
government shutdown at the moment :-(

-J.

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[Arlo Barnes]

I have been twice, and the second time I was fortunate enough to be with a group (my school) who was permitted a tour of the control room and the correlator (parallel computing) room. There was a hallway with a chalkboard laying out the operating plan for 1991, and in a corner was scrawled "Jody was here", although I doubt it was her (she was the actress who played the main character in Contact, a film partially set and shot at the VLA, and who narrates the Vimeo video [so the description says, I am having buffering problems]; Anybody who saw 2010: Odyssey Two also saw the VLA, in the opening scenes).

Next weekend I am going to the New Mexico SuperComputing Challenge KickOff in Socorro, which is near the VLA (though the array itself is closer to the town of Magdalena, a short drive away but certainly not within reasonable walking or even casual biking distance, and you have to go a bit past Magdalena even to get to the array; probably the best descriptor of where it is would properly be "on the San Agustin plains".) so it is a shame it will be closed. The Y-arrangement of the [large] dishes is impressive even when seen from outside the gates, though.
It is a couple hours from ABQ depending on conditions, and one more from Santa Fe, so you would not just spontaneously drop in for a visit, but when it reopens it is probably worth setting aside a free day to see.

-Arlo

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