Photo – Page 43 – National Radio Astronomy Observatory

Picture Perfect VLA

A gorgeous day in central New Mexico gives a photographer this stunning shot of the Very Large Array in its most compact configuration.

Oxygen is required for any staff member spending long periods of time working on ALMA’s supercomputer. The supercomputer is housed close to the telescopes site which sits at an elevation of 16,500 feet in the Chilean Andes.

ALMA’s Supercomputer

The four-quadrant ALMA Correlator inside the Array Operations Site Technical Building at 16,500 feet elevation in northern Chile. This supercomputer can process 17 quadrillion operations every second.

ALMA From a Distance

The Chajnantor Plain is an ancient lava bed sitting at 16,500 feet up in the Chilean Andes. It provides ALMA with dry skies and enough flat expanse to separate the antennas by tens of miles.

ALMA Technicians

Wendy Harper and Erik Gaines, two technicians at the ALMA Front End Integration Facility at NRAO’s Technology Center in Virginia, enjoying a laugh during the filming of a documentary about the building of ALMA.

ALMA Front End Integration Center

ALMA Front End Integration Center team members Wendy Harper and Erik Gaines ready the center’s testing lab. Behind them is a model of the back of an ALMA antenna dish. The Front End is the cryogenically-cooled cabinet filled with the ten receivers used by ALMA astronomers. This testing facility reproduces the movements of an antenna and provides simulated observations for the receivers. Put through its paces, Front Ends for ALMA are adjusted to perfection before being shipped to Chile for integration into assembled ALMA antennas. This facility at NRAO in Charlottesville, Virginia tested 22 Front Ends for ALMA. Our partners in Japan and Europe delivered the other 44.

The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is a facility of the U.S. National Science Foundation operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc.
	Founded in 1956, the NRAO provides state-of-the-art radio telescope facilities for use by the international scientific community. NRAO telescopes are open to all astronomers regardless of institutional or national affiliation. Observing time on NRAO telescopes is available on a competitive basis to qualified scientists after evaluation of research proposals on the basis of scientific merit, the capability of the instruments to do the work, and the availability of the telescope during the requested time. NRAO also provides both formal and informal programs in education and public outreach for teachers, students, the general public, and the media.
	The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent federal agency created by Congress in 1950 "to promote the progress of science; to advance the national health, prosperity, and welfare; to secure the national defense..."
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