The Very Large Array

Posted on by Ian C.

The Very Large Array (VLA) in New Mexico is a complex of 27 huge radio telescopes that can be moved around to create a pseudo antenna of up to 20 miles or more across – but by amazing luck, on our visit all the antennas were clustered together, giving excellent views! Rail tracks extend from the center out on three axes, and a machine can pick up and move the antennas as needed. Once in place all the antennas can be rotated together to point to a particular part of the sky (and we luckily saw them rotating too!)

From the road, and the sign to VLA, there’s still 50 miles to go (it’s a long way from anywhere, to minimize radio pick-up from towns, etc); located where it’s flat – perfect for a radio telescope array!

It’s hard to tell in the pictures above. just how many antennas there are – some are lined up along one of the rail track axes. It’s also hard to tell just how big everything is; but these pics might help:

 

While we were walking around the tour, all the antennas rotated – very cool! You can see “before” and “after” in the last two pictures …

An epic day!

Large Array, Little MINI

Posted on by Ian C.

I’ve always wanted to visit the Very Large Array (VLA); but it’s a long way from everywhere – 50 miles from the highway at Socorro which itself is 80 miles from Alburquerque … but we made sure to visit, and got treated to the best!


The array consists of about 27 huge radio telescopes which can be moved closer together or further apart along three rail tracks – they can cover more than 20 miles, or be brought closer for higher resolution telescopy. We were very lucky that all the antennas were together, giving great views. Even more, the antennas were active, swinging through about 100 degrees, and back, during the time we were there!

It’s hard to find on maps etc; go here on Google Maps and you can see the three track lines extending out from the center of the VLA! It’s open Sunrise to Sunset (can’t see anything in the dark!) and as well as an interesting visitor center with various information and a movie, you just get to walk around the array, pretty close to the antennas …