Your instructor visited the Very Large Array (VLA) facility near Socorro, NM, in November, 2001, in a field trip organized as part of the Topical Meeting on Integrated Computational Imaging Systems organized by the Optical Society of America. After particle accelerators, the VLA is the second grandest demonstration of human intellect reaching to conquer the mysteries of the cosmos. It is composed of 27 radio-frequency antennae (plus one spare antenna used for maintenance) arranged in a Y shape. The length of each Y branch is variable, between 1.3 miles and 13 miles. The antennas basically form a giant interferometer which allows astronomers to obtain unprecedented resolution on remote and old celestial objects such as galaxies, pulsars and quasars. These objects may predate us by billions of years, thus giving us intriguing glimpses into the young age of the Universe.

Below are some memorable scenes from George's visit to the VLA, courtesy of Rick L. Morrison and the Distant Focus Corporation.

The antennae are pointing at 45 degrees for a measurement as we're driving to the visitor center.		Your instructor in front of the spare antenna in the maintenance center. (Notice the apparent curvature of the beams of the building: Rick is using a fish-eye lens... Interferometric imaging does not have to worry about this kind of problem even with large fields of view!)		Rick under a giant microwave lens. We are now inside the dish of the antenna.
Now the formation is pointing upwards - we were later told that the staff were performing some kind of calibration. The peak rotation speed is an impressive 45 degrees/min.		Walking towards it...		The brown fences are there to prevent cows from interfering with cosmological observations.... (the land has been requisitioned by the Government, but local agriculture is permitted around the telescope)
View of the antennae from the computational facility.		Yet another view with more antennae in sight.		This gigantic machine is used to move the antennae around along double tracks.
Inside the computational facility. The big box is a hydrogen time standard. The big racks in the back are the waveguide terminations and receivers. The high-speed correlator is in a back room, with temperature control.		The most famous astronomer ever: Eleanor Arroway with the Arecibo collector lens (not the VLA) in her background!		Aerial view (from the official VLA site)