NRAO Green Bank Observatory 300 ft. Telescope, 6 June 1985 - Jeffrey R. Miller - Department of Physics - St. Lawrence University

NRAO – Green Bank Observatory 300-ft. Telescope

In June 1985, I had just finished my undergraduate degree at Western Connecticut State University. I traveled with my astronomy professor, Dr. Phillip K. Lu, and two fellow students to the 166^th American Astronomical Society meeting in Charlottesville, VA, to present the results of my senior research. On the drive home, we stopped in Green Bank, WV, on June 6^th to visit the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO – now the Green Bank Observatory), and we were given a tour of the observatory telescopes by J. Richard Fisher (of the Tully-Fisher Relation). In the photo below, my fellow students and I posed in front of the 300-ft. telescope, which at the time was the largest steerable radio telescope in the world.
6 June, 1985: Jeff Miller (on left), with fellow WCSU astronomers Marybeth Haddy and Corinne LeBrun Click photo for a larger image
I took more photos as we walked closer, but the enormous size of the telescope prevented me from capturing the entire dish and receiver in one shot. In the photo at lower left, you'll see Phil Lu admiring the telescope. This gives you a sense of the scale of the dish.

Three years later, the 300-ft. telescope was no more. On November 15^th, 1988, the telescope collapsed. The collapse was caused by the failure of a large gusset plate in the box girder assembly that formed the main support for the antenna. More photos of the 300-ft. telescope in its prime can be found in this NRAO Photo Gallery.
The telescope on 14 November, 1988, one day before the collapse. Photo Credit: Richard Porcas	The telescope collapsed on 15 November, 1988. Photo Credit: Richard Porcas
Detail of the collapsed telescope. Photo credit: NRAO/AUI/NSF
I took the photo below of the 300-ft. telescope site, as seen from atop the Green Bank Telescope (GBT), during our Undergraduate ALFALFA Workshop on June 14^th, 2017 – my first return to the observatory in 32 years.
The access road to the site of the 300-ft. telescope, as viewed from the GBT, 14 June 2017. The telescope control building is at center-right in the photo. Also visible are two of the three 85-ft telescopes from the Green Bank Interferometer

Jeff's Astronomy Photos page

The background image on this page is from a photograph of the Van Vleck Observatory 20-inch Alvin Clark refractor,
taken by Frederick Slocum, Director of VVO from 1915 to 1944.

© St. Lawrence University Department of Physics

Revised: 11 June, 2019 Canton, NY 13617