This is a photo of the Radio Frequency Interference Group in Green Bank, taken some years ago. Although some of the staff members have since moved on, the duties are still the same: to ensure that on-site and local sources of radio frequency interference are nulled.
The Green Bank Observatory sits inside a 13,000 square mile radio protection zone set aside by the Government. The truck here is equipped with antennas to pinpoint sources of interference around the countryside. Even a short in a heating blanket miles away from the Green Bank Telescope will be seen clearly by the GBT and ruin its astronomical observations. Microwave ovens in the buildings here get their own shielding boxes called “Faraday cages.”
Working the Mill
Green Bank Machinist Dwayne Barker readies a new project on a giant mill in the machine shop.
Green Bank Machine Shop
With lathes, mills, and specially-trained staff, the machine shop in Green Bank makes critical hardware for all of our telescopes around the world. They use aluminum, brass, and steel to create pieces as small as those that fit into the receivers to the huge feed horns that are bolted through the telescope dishes.
Tatel Telescope in Autumn
The historic 85-foot Howard E. Tatel telescope in Green Bank. It was the first radio telescope of the NRAO and began observing on February 13, 1959. The Tatel became famous in 1960 for performing the world’s first SETI observations under the direction of Dr. Frank Drake.
Father of SETI with SETI’s First Telescope
Dr. Frank Drake, one of the NRAO’s first astronomers, poses with the NRAO’s first radio telescope, the 85-foot Howard E. Tatel.
Itty Bitty Teaching Telescope
Discarded satellite television and internet antennas are retrofitted as tiny radio telescopes with a simple adjustment to become educational tools for teachers and youth leaders.