Day: October 14, 2014

Very Large Array – Sunday October 4, 2014

We spent an additional 4 hours at the Very Large Array today.  It was the first Saturday of the month behind the scenes tours and this month was the semi-annual expanded tours.  One of the people participating in the tours was Barry Clark one of the scientist’s who wrote and got the original approval for the VLA back in the early 70’s.
They just finished a ten year updating of the electronics including the computer system.

Read the last paragraph, it’s faster then my Dell.

The tour was really interest and we learned a lot about the VLA.  The tour was organized by a group of scientists.  The tour started at the admin building which is about 150 yards from the visitor’s center.  This picture shows the distance.

They had made this sign so everyone would know where the tour’s start.
Here’s the challenge, the sign is with the yellow flags 150 yards away from the visitor’s center from where you could see the flags but not the sign.
Here is some information about the place we are camped.

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We have taken a lot of pictures during this trip, however we are using my cellphone for internet access so I’m not posting may pictures.

Here is one from my paddle board outing with Vickie.

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White Sands National Monument – Tuesday October 14, 2014

The sand at White Sands is really white.
I took this picture so there would be something in the picture that wasn’t just white.
One with a couple of plants.
This is the edge of one of dunes.
and I have a bunch of pictures showing the waves in the sand.   Hank had a great time walking around on the sand.
This evening I took a bunch of night pictures. It is really hard to believe how many stars there are in the sky.  The Milky Way is much easier to see in a picture, these are all about 20 seconds long.
I just missed a shooting star in this picture, it was just to the left of my picture.