Visiting the Very Large Array

This past week I travelled to the Array Operations Center for the NRAO in Socorro, New Mexico, to help give a Kokkos tutorial and hackathon to several teams there. They were kind enough to take me on a tour of the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array, which is about an hour to the west out in the middle of nowhere. The site was shut down for routine maintenance, so we were able to have my cell phone on and take some pictures. We also got to climb up into one of the 25-meter dishes!

Since the array was off for maintenance, all the dishes were aimed (nearly) straight up at the sky, in their "stow" or idle positions.

Sign on the way to the VLA.

View of the VLA from afar.

Parked on the VLA movement tracks that cross the road.

Another view of the VLA from the approach road.

Sign welcoming you to the VLA

The dish on the walking tour

A maintenance vehicle keeping the movement tracks clear.

View of dishes from half-way up one.

Inside the central column of the dish where cables return to the control center.

Panoramic shot of the site from a dish, looking towards the maintenance garage.

Rust visible on the inside of the 40-50 year old dish.

Receiver equipment in the core of the dish.

Standing inside the dish, looking up at the bottom of the reflector.

Panoramic view of the Kokkos Team standing inside one of the dishes.

A closer view of the collectors, each of which is for a different band of frequencies.

One of my colleagues looking at the collectors in the dish.

View down through the floor grate while climing down from the dish.

View down the path climbing down from the dish.

Panoramic view of the array from half-way up one dish.

Standing at the base of the dish.

Standing on the tracks looking towards the center of the array.

Standing on the tracks looking towards the maintenance barn.

The moon over one of the dishes.

View of the array from the control center balcony.