Green Bank Observatory

We went to Green Bank Observatory in Green Bank, West Virginia with some friends on Memorial Day. It is about an hour and forty minutes worth of a drive back there.

Green Bank Telescope is a radio telescope. It is so sensitive that it can pick up signals from your cell phone even if your phone were on Saturn. Since it is so sensitive everything at Green Bank on the property is protected by Faraday cages to make sure absolutely no stray radio interference gets out. The radio silence zone actually encompasses Harrisonburg and Staunton, but they are stricter closer to the telescope. Some radio stations lower their broadcasting power at night so not to interfere with the telescope.

The telescope is roughly 300 feet in diameter. It is not a perfect bowl shape, however. It is kind of scalloped shaped so that the equipment that receives the signals can be put out of the way, so it doesn’t interfere with the receiving of the signals. The telescope can rotate 360 degrees in 9 minutes. It seems really slow but moving that much metal in a full circle in 9 minutes is rather amazing because it weighs 17 million pounds! The telescope can see roughly 85% of the night sky. Due to the earth’s tilt and rotation that means 85% of the whole universe. The other 15% is blocked because the earth is bulged in the middle.

To be clear, there are about 5 or 6 different telescopes at the facility but the 300 ft one is the one everybody knows about and is impressive.

The main telescope can be used by anyone for free. You can submit your idea to a group of people, and they will decide if your hypothesis is valid and give you a time slot. You can log in from your home computer, give the telescope its instructions, and then watch the data live. After your slot is over you will get a copy of the data.

We also went to Hannah Field again. I didn’t really take any pictures but we went to Sounding Knob Fire Tour. Here are some pictures from that.