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Date:              January 18th-20th, 2002
Time:              Leave:  Friday (1/18) @ 3:00 pm
                        Return:  Sunday Evening
Participants:   Dr. Rhett Herman
                        Dr. Brett Taylor
                        Dr. Tsunefumi Tanaka
                        Katie Plum
                        Robyn Van Dyke
                        Matthew Frazier
                        Jason Armentrout
                        Dan Blake
                        Michael Felton

 

 

 

 

note:  holding your mouse pointer over some of the pictures will bring up a description.  clicking on them will bring up larger versions.

SUMMARY OF THE TRIP

Friday:  Our original intent was to get to Green Bank (GB) by 7:00pm, but we ended up getting there closed to 9:00pm.  As a result, we were unable to make use of the 40' radio telescope that first night, but we did make good use of the time anyway.  The group decided it would be a good idea to take a tour of the campus.  Some of us rode bikes, while others walked the mile or so distance all the way down to the Green Bank Telescope (GBT).  Although our pictures of the GBT from Friday did not turn out, the telescope was lit up and was easy to see if you were there.

Saturday:  Saturday morning we awoke and met the education officer at GB, Mrs. Sue Ann Heatherly.  Our tour included a brief history of the facility, a walk through the on-site electronics lab, an introduction to the extensive library, and we got to go through the control room of the 300' GBT as well.  I think most of us were surprised to learn that most of the receiving equipment for the telescopes is made on-site.
Our tour continued into the electronics lab at Green Bank. The lab is held in the blue building that can be seen in the background of the picture at left. Believe it or not, most of the equipment made to receive and interpret radio signals is made on site.Beginning of our tour.

This picture is of the inside of the GBT control room. If the you were looking as the camera is and turned your head left you would see about 10 computers, ranging from Gateways running Windows to Sun Workstations running a form of Unix. If you looked right, you would see tons of equipment racks loaded with the receiving equipment for the GBT. Looking out the windows will give you a view of the GBT from about a mile away. A view from here to the GBT can be seen in the next three pics.

After leaving the control room, we headed down to the forty-footer, which after some quick instruction from Mrs. Heatherly, we were able to use for whatever we wanted for the next two days.  The next two pictures are of the forty-footer.  Forty feet may not seem large when compared to the other scopes around Green Bank (see the 160' equatorial mount scope below), so we took a picture of a few of us standing in front of the forty foot telescope just for comparison purposes.