Photo – Page 63 – National Radio Astronomy Observatory

Panorama with the GBT

The fog rolls around the valley in Green Bank, West Virginia in the twilight hour before dawn. Catching the first rays of the Sun, the 425-foot tall Green Bank Telescope positively glows.

In Green Bank, West Virginia sits a field of 64 of these antennas made by the machinists there. These antennas are searching the distant Universe for the first starlight the Cosmos ever produced, billions of years ago. The project is called PAPER, the Precision Array for Probing the Epoch of Reionization. It is a partnership between NRAO staff scientists and scientists at UC-Berkeley, the University of Virginia, the University of Pennsylvania, and the Square Kilometer Array project (SKA) in South Africa.

PAPER

In Green Bank, West Virginia sits a field of 64 antennas made by the machinists there. These antennas are searching the distant Universe for the first starlight the Cosmos ever produced, billions of years ago. The project is called PAPER, the Precision Array for Probing the Epoch of Reionization. It is a partnership between NRAO staff scientists and scientists at UC-Berkeley, the University of Virginia, the University of Pennsylvania, and SKA South Africa.

She Controls the Telescope

Anne Nealon, a student at Broadway High School in Rockingham, Virginia, remotely operates the NRAO 20-meter telescope from her school library. The 20-meter telescope became the first radio telescope in the robotic suite known as SKYNET, an educational program run out of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Grote Reber’s Telescope

Grote Reber’s original 31-foot radio telescope was reconstructed by him in Green Bank, West Virginia. It is a historic monument for its use in Reber’s discoveries of bright radio sources in the sky, his mapping of the Milky way, and his observations which led to the discovery of non-thermal radiation.

Grote Reber’s Telescope and the Green Bank Science Center

Grote Reber’s original 31-foot dish radio telescope was reconstructed by him in Green Bank, West Virginia and is viewable by visitors to the Green Bank Science Center (in the background left). This telescope is a historic monument for its use in Reber’s discoveries of bright radio sources in the sky, his mapping of the Milky way, and his observations which led to the discovery of non-thermal radiation.

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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