Other Sites Gallery
Tucson Offices on Forbes Blvd., October 1974
Paul Rhodes and Bill Gust stand at the entrance to the new NRAO Tucson offices on Forbes Blvd. in October 1974. Prior to moving into the Forbes Interstate Industrial Park, where the interior space was specially designed for NRAO (and included NRAO's first shower room - many Tucson employees rode bicycles to work), NRAO had occupied space in the basement of Kitt Peak National Observatory's Tucson offices. Complexity of the equipment and increasing staff numbers meant the limited available KPNO space no longer met NRAO's needs, so the search for new quarters began in 1973. Nineteen NRAO employees moved into the Forbes Blvd. offices in 1974. (GB74-11954.jpg)
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Open House at the 36 Foot in Tucson, 1974
NRAO has always worked to introduce radio astronomy and to educate students, teachers, and the general public about our instruments and the exciting research conducted with them. Site tours and open houses have long been a popular and successful part of this process. In this photo, a group tours the control room of the 36 foot telescope on Kitt Peak outside Tucson in approximately 1974. Operator Don Cardarella is seated at the left and Cal Sparks, with white shirt, is standing on the right. Photo taken by Mark Gordon. tour_36ft_gordonphoto.jpg
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New Surface for Tucson's 36 Foot, May 1982
In May 1982, in the Green Bank Warehouse where the work was done, John Payne (left) and John Findlay contemplate engineering issues during the fabrication process for the new surface and back-up structure that would convert Tucson's 36 foot telescope into a 12 meter telescope. The 36 foot closed for resurfacing and upgrade on 15 July 1982, and first observations with the 12 meter were made on 17 January 1984. (GB-82-20137_clean_payne-findlay-12m-fab.jpg)
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Neil Horner, 1985
Neil Horner inspecting a Schottky Diode mixer for the 36' Telescope Receiver in Tucson, AZ at Kitt Peak, February 1965 (NeilHorner_feb1985.jpg)
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VLBA Construction, Pie Town NM, 1986
Construction at the VLBA Pietown site, 7 October 1986. The Pie Town antenna was the first of the ten VLBA antennas constructed. (VLBASITE 1.205A Construction.jpg)
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Setting Pie Town Antenna Azimuth Track, 1986
In this photo, taken in late 1986 during the construction of the first antenna, in Pie Town NM, employees of the VLBA antenna contractor, Radiation Systems Inc, are setting the azimuth track for the Pie Town antenna in preparation for grouting the track. Thanks to Craig Walker and Peter Napier for caption information. VLBASITE-1-177A-Construction.jpg
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Installing Surface Panel, Los Alamos, October 1987
Installation of the surface panels on the Los Alamos NM VLBA antenna nears completion in October 1987. (LA-29oct1987.jpg)
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VLBA Deformatter Board, date unknown
VLBA correlator deformatter board - front. Thanks to Jon Romney for the photo. (VLBA-board-front-P1000750-Romney.JPG)
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VLBA Correlator, date unknown
The VLBA correlator reflects the dedicated efforts of many NRAO staff members over a number of years. (VLA-PUB-15_VLAB-Correlator.jpg)
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VLBA Dedication, 20 August 1993
The VLBA was dedicated on 20 August 1993. In this photo, U.S. Representative Joe Skeen (left), NRAO Director Paul Vanden Bout (right), and NRAO Associate Director Bob Brown (background) watch as Senator Pete Domenici scans the bar code below the word "Start" to initiate observations of W3OH. As the antennas began to point, lights on the displayed map lit up for each station, sequencing from east to west. There also was a monitor that showed RA/Dec and Az/El for each antenna, and those numbers started changing as the antennas slewed toward their target. Bob Greschke, VLBA chief operator at the time, wrote the software for the bar-code trick that triggered the map-light sequence and then put a message on his operator's screen so he could manually start the actual pointing sequence. Thanks to Dave Finley and Bob Greschke for caption information, to Peggy Perley, Jon Romney, and Craig Walker for suggestions on finding out about the observing target, and to Jim Ogle, who searched through the (still readable!) years old Exabyte backup tape to find the source observed for the occasion. vlba_dedication_bar-code-scan.jpg
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12 Meter Telescope Decommissioning, 2000
After 32 years as an NRAO telescope, first as the 36ft and then as the 12m, the 12m telescope was decommissioned on 27 July 2000. Long-time users joined Tucson employees to honor its long and successful life. Top row from left: Darrel Emerson, Frank Gacon, Dale Webb, Koh-Ichiro Morita, Joan Martin, Andrea Vaccari, Eugene Conner, Tom Morin, Bill Shillue, Jackie Cochran, Jennifer Neighbours, Ernest Kemp, Jeffrey Kingsley, Werner Scharlach, Ferdinand Patt. Ground level from left: Mark Metcalf, Paul Hart, John Payne, C. Duane Clark, Larry D’Addario, Al Wootten, James Schroeder, Jingquan Cheng, Victor Gasho, George Teitz, Robert Freund, George Reiland, David Hogg, Harry Stahl, Simon Radford, Kevin Long, Jeffrey Mangum. (12m-decommissioning-27July2000-1.jpg)
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