Month: September 2017

This little town (whose name is pronounced AB-i-cue)  is located about 50 miles north of Santa Fe, NM.  There is something about 12 miles from here which is what actually brought me here, but I turned off the highway and drove up the hill to what is left of the town itself.  I will address that other facility in another post.

Some of these buildings are still used, some are not.  Most are churches and residences.  There were more homes and buildings nearby but these are located around the “town square,” a popular feature of small, western towns (like once-small Santa Fe and Taos, where I am staying the next 5 nights).

On my way from Show Low, Arizona to Albuquerque, New Mexico on Monday I made a side trip to visit the VLA, located west of Socorro, NM.  The VLA is part of the NRAO (National Radio Astronomy Observatory), which is funded largely by the National Science Foundation.  The NRAO operates several radio telescope facilities around the world.  The two largest facilities are located in Green Bank, West Virginia (right next to my mother’s hometown of Arbovale) and here near Socorro.  One of my uncles used to work as a telescope operator at Green Bank.  He would sit in a control room and move the scopes to point at various sources following a “script” of what, specifically, the scientists were monitoring each day (or night).

The VLA is a system of 27 identical 82-foot diameter radio telescopes.  These telescopes are available to scientists 24 hour a day, 362 days per year (they do not work on the 3 major holidays).

These radio telescopes (similar in design to satellite dishes used to receive TV signals) gather radio pulses from sources in deep space.  Scientists from all over the world submit proposals to the NRAO for projects they would like to study (these scopes have helped discover and research quasars, pulsars, black holes, etc).

By having multiple telescopes hooked in to one supercomputer scientists, in effect, are using a much larger single telescope which would be impossible to construct.  To achieve this, these 27 telescopes (3 groups of 9) can be moved to 4 different configurations in a ‘Y’ pattern on the desert floor.

They are moved from location to location on railroad tracks by a huge, orange transporter.

Once in position, their 3 legs are anchored to a concrete base and connected to the custom-made supercomputer by 2,700 miles of fiber-optic cable.  That computer is capable of making 16 quadrillion calculations per second in processing the radio signals into usable information.

In addition to the current positions you can see other concrete bases built to accommodate the scopes when they are moved to new positions.  These configurations range from a diameter of .62 mile up to 22.37 miles.

If you visit the VLA you will always see all 27 telescopes pointed at the same source.  In Green Bank there are 3 identical 85-foot diameter telescopes, one in a fixed location and the other two on wheels which can be moved up and down a paved runway, which serve the same function.  The telescopes are mounted equatorially, meaning they can pivot on one axis which is parallel to the axis on which the Earth rotates.  This allows the scopes to be pointed at a source in space when it rises above the horizon and track it across the sky until it drops below the opposite horizon.

There is a 28th scope which can serve as a replacement if one of the other scopes suffers technical problems.  It is stored in a maintenance facility they call “the Barn”.  All of the scopes are systematically moved to the Barn for routine maintenance and equipment upgrades.

These were all taken on Day 1 from the South Rim using the digital camera.

These were all taken on Day 1 of my visit to the South Rim using the digital camera.

These were all taken on Day 2 at the North Rim using the digital camera.

As I went in Park that morning there were bison on both sides of the road, just past the entrance.  This wasn’t all of them – there were more on each side!

It is amazing what gets dropped over the edge at various observation platforms.  Anyone lose a nice pair of Ray-Bans??  These were WAY down there….

These were all taken on Day 2 at the North Rim using the digital camera.

These were taken from the back of the observation room at the Lodge looking through each of the 3 big windows.  Talk about a room with a view!

This was taken from a conference room which overlooked the larger of the two outside observation decks.  I was absolutely STUNNED at how few people were at the North Rim the second day I went (a nice, sunny day as opposed to the overcast and rainy day the first time I went).

These were all taken on Day 1 at the South Rim using the digital camera.

And it appears that I inadvertently shot some of the bird pictures I was hoping to get (those not as tight of a shot as I would have liked).  Better to be lucky than good, sometimes.

These were all taken Day 1 at the South Rim using the digital camera.  I have lots more, plus photos from Day 2.  I will stagger those posts over the coming days.

The first day I was at the South Rim I overheard a tour group guide tell his flock that tourist helicopters are no longer allowed to fly over or down in the Canyon and that if we saw one it would be a Park Service helicopter.  Sure enough, later that day one went in, and a short time later came back out.  As it flew in I watched it as it flew down in the Canyon towards one of the closer formations until it became an insignificant speck.  This just reinforced the fact that the Canyon is HUGE.

More birds of a more conventional sort (sorry if these are duplicates of what I posted the other day):

And some folks having fun “way down upon on the Colorado River”:

And I’m not sure exactly what this was but I was sure glad it was on a nearby rock and not on me!

Here is a collection of random things from the past two weeks or so.

This is the first Runaway Truck Ramp I think I have ever seen that was recently used (before being groomed for the next victim).  It was on the dreaded interstate I took on my way up to Arches National Park in Utah.

There is a non-graveled lane to the right which is evidently how a tow truck gets on site to extract the, now stuck, truck.  I saw another ramp somewhere on this trip, I don’t remember where, that was twice as long as the conventional ramp and ended almost completely vertical.  I swear, if it had been paved instead of covered with gravel it would have launched the offending truck into space!

Next up, some cool vehicles I saw in the little town of Oatman on the day I drove part of Historic Route 66.

Next, a hot air balloon I saw shortly after it was launched while I was on my way to Scottsdale to visit the Frank Lloyd Wright residence.

And then there was the tent on the property of Taliesin West which is typical of where Mr. Wright’s apprentices were expected to stay while working for him.

And later that day, a mountain I passed on my way east to Show Low, Arizona.

Then, on the day I drove up to the Petrified Forest National Park I saw this in a field off to my right.  My guess would be that the externally rusted tank holds water for the cattle which lives on the property and is pumped up from underground, initially by wind-generated power and more recently by solar-generated power.

And finally, when I arrived at the Park there was a bicycle rally in progress.  Here are two riders I met when I was at the Visitor Center, ready to embark on the second half of their ride for charity.  They are riding the newest craze, an E-Bike which is motor assisted.  I may need to look into that when I get home.  My brothers gave me a bike for my 50th birthday (to try and promote a healthy lifestyle) but the bike rack on my car got far more miles put on it than the bike ever did.  I’m not in very good shape and just don’t have the stamina for bicycle riding.  Kudos to those who can ride considerable distances for charity, motor-assisted or not!

And a conventional bicycle, waiting for it’s rider who is off taking a break.