The Green Bank Telescope (GBT) is always picture-perfect when autumn comes to its gorgeous West Virginia home.
Green Bank Science Center
The Green Bank Science Center is open year-round for visitors. Our 25,000 square foot facility contains the Catching the Wave Exhibit Hall, 150-seat auditorium, StarLab Classroom, gift shop, and even a café. We offer hands-on activities and StarLab sessions in addition to guided bus tours of the telescopes.
Green Bank in 1965
The Green Bank site, circa January 1965, as viewed from the southwest. The 300-foot dish is turned away from the camera on the left, with the brand new 140-foot (43-meter) telescope staring straight up. To the right are two elements of the Green Bank Interferometer (GBI), the NRAO’s first array.
Green Bank Observatory
The Green Bank site, circa 1980, in an aerial shot from the north. The telescopes are, from left to right, the 85-foot Howard E. Tatel, the 40-foot, the 85-3 and 85-2 elements of the Green Bank Interferometer, and 300-foot, and the 140-foot (43-meter) in its downward aiming maintenance position. A fourth member of the GBI, the 42-foot, would have been 13 miles away on a hilltop.
Calibration Horn Antenna
The Calibration Horn Antenna, nicknamed the “Little Big Horn,” at Green Bank in 1961. As its name implies, this 120-foot long horn antenna was used to measure the intensity of radio waves coming from the sky’s strongest non-solar radio source, Cassiopeia A. The Calibration Horn measured a total power output for Cas A at a frequency of 1.4 GHz (a wavelength of 20cm), and thus provided astronomers with a standard reference point on the sky against which they could measure other sources.
Future Home of a Giant
This was the building site for the 300-foot telescope at Green Bank. The mound at far right contains the corn stalks from the field, fenced to keep animals out.