Campbell M. Wade came to Green Bank, West Virginia in 1960. He had been an astronomer trained at Harvard who had then worked at the Parkes Observatory in Australia. In Green Bank, he worked with David Heeschen performing surveys of galaxies to map their radio profiles. Wade was on the team that designed the Green Bank Interferometer (GBI) to test methods for what would become the Very Large Array. In 1965, he was first on the Plains of San Agustin in New Mexico testing it for site suitability. He later moved to Socorro for VLA construction, and was VLA director from 1978-1980. Before retirement, he worked on siting for the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) and the Millimeter Array (MMA), what would later become ALMA.
Aerial Shot of the Long Wavelength Array
Looking down on the 256 white, tent-shaped antennas of the Long Wavelength Array (LWA). Like the Very Large Array, the LWA combines the views of its individual antennas into impressive radio images of the sky. Unlike the VLA, however, the LWA antennas cannot dip or turn. To image different parts of the sky, the antennas rely on sophisticated electronics, software, and their four-sided faces.
The LWA is tuned to natural radio waves to observe pulsars that are below the range of FM radio broadcast channels, the Sun and its effects on the planets, and the most distant stars and galaxies in the Universe. In addition, the LWA also studies the radio-bouncing layer of our atmosphere, called the ionosphere.
A Buffet of Receivers
The receivers of the Green Bank Telescope sit in a revolving cabin called the turret. The feed horns poke above the cabin, and their receivers hang beneath them in a suspended building that tilts with the telescope. When an astronomer wants to observe the longest wavelengths at the GBT, the telescope operator spins the largest horn into the beam of radio waves bouncing from the sub-reflector above the turret. The feeds are covered in a radio-clear fabric to keep debris and rain out, and blowers keep the fabric dry and free of obstructions.
140-foot Groundbreaking
On August 14, 1958, construction began on a major radio telescope, the 140-foot (43-meter) dish antenna. Participating in this humble groundbreaking ceremony are left to right: Eugene Hallik (AUI), unidentified (Bliss Company), Jack Gilgallon (Bliss Company), Frank Callender (NRAO), Richard Emberson (AUI).
Grote Reber Rewinds His Beans
Radio astronomy pioneer Grote Reber was a Renaissance thinker, dabbling in many different experiments. Here he is rewinding climbing beans, because he discovered that they produce more massive fruit if they climb opposite to their nature.
Sebastian von Hoerner
From 1962 until 1983, Sebastian von Hoerner was a researcher in Green Bank, West Virginia. Born in Gorlitz, Germany in 1919, von Hoerner studied theoretical physics before coming the NRAO to study star formation and cosmology. He developed mathematical definitions of how large dish telescopes deform under weight and movement, a concept called homology that is still used today. Von Hoerner was friends with Frank Drake during Project Ozma, the first search for extraterrestrial intelligence, and he became a avid SETI supporter. He was a popularizer of astronomy in Germany.