"One of the principal limiting factors in radio astronomy observations today is man-made radio "noise."
"Interference can be blocked off by barriers. Thus, if there is a large hill between a radio transmitter and a radio telescope, the transmitter is much less likely to be troublesome to radio astronomy observations. For this reason a valley surrounded by mountains is a good choice for a radio telescope site.
"All of these factors entered into the choice of a site for the National Radio Astronomy Observatory. Green Bank is in Deer Creek Valley, at an elevation of 2600 feet, with mountains rising all around to about 4200 feet. The valley is relatively sparsely populated, there are no large population centers nearby, and the mountains effectively shield the valley from the nearer cities. As a result, the level of manmade noise in the valley is very low. ..."
(From a booklet prepared by Associated Universities, Inc., to mark the occasion of ground-breaking ceremonies at Green Bank, WV, Oct. 17, 1957)
In a moment when I was taking a break the other day, I scanned the beginning of a book that an astronomer friend sent to me that's on my list of things to read. The book is about the history of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Green Bank, WV.
Green Bank is was where I spent my last year of grad school (at Northwestern). A large part of my dissertation project had to do with radio astronomy, about which I had read a great deal and taken some courses. But I had the itching thought in my head that I was only getting part of the story. My last year I applied for, and thankfully received, a fellowship, called a dissertation-year fellowship: folks who received it were expected to take the opportunity to not have to teach or work, go hole themselves up for a year and complete their thesis.
After the sense of amazement wore off, I remember the next thought I had was: I DON'T HAVE TO SPEND THE COMING WINTER IN CHICAGO! I could go write my dissertation in freakin' Jamaica if I wanted to. Have money, can travel - woot!! Don't get me wrong. I love, love, LOVE Chicago; it's like my second home and anyone who knows me, also knows not to get me started because I will go on ad nauseam about how cool the windy city is. All the same, after 4 or 5 winters in a row, I was ready for a break.
I put the idea of Jamaica out of my head and started thinking more strategically. I asked the radio astronomer who was on my committee if he might know any astronomy observatory folks who would be willing to take on a philosopher of science type who wanted to reside at their facility and learn more in a hands-on way about the science. Oh, yeh, and write her dissertation.
And there was a taker: the observatory at Green Bank! I took out pretty much every last dollar I had for cash advances on my credit card to buy a beater car, got a sub-letter for my apartment, loaded up my vehicle and away I went.
That was one of the most amazing experiences in my life. I learned so much! How to use Unix. How to reduce data with several different sorts of software. I worked my own observing program at the Haystack Observatory's 37-meter telescope up in Massachusetts - that was insanely awesome. I mean, I didn't just plug in my observing program from afar: I actually operated the damned thing for a weekend all by myself, inside the radiodome at a console with the telescope right behind me. I'm telling you, setting coordinates to slew that 100-foot dish around, and then turning to watch this gigantic piece of machinery respond, arc, and swivel (sometimes with the idea: omg, what if I made an error and told it to point at the ground?) was absolutely thrilling.
Illustration of MIT's Haystack 37-meter radio telescope.
But back to Green Bank, I got met lots of wonderful people, including G. I took a stab at learning how to snowboard up at Snowshoe (which, as I hear is the norm, consisted mostly of me doing face-plants). As the description from that book above correctly puts it, Green Bank is truly isolated. So to do any kind of decent grocery shopping, you had to go over at least 2 mountains to get to the nearest town. So grocery shopping days were always like little mini-adventures: icing up the cooler, filling up a big thermos of coffee and having a day trip. And if you wanted anything "really" fancy - like fresh fish or a manicure - then that meant going over a few more mountains and over into Virginia.
It was also a year that followed my sort of random decision to try being vegetarian (but the kind that eats fish, whatever the terminology is for that, that I never paid much attention to). I wasn't driven to it by any health or ethical concerns (although in moments of weakness I did draw from ethical thinking to keep myself on the wagon). I just wanted to try it and see what it was like, to see if I could do it and be okay with it.
What is it like to be vegetarian in West Virginia? More on that thrilling tale, later!
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