23/11: Birds, Ghost Towns and Dishes
Category: General
Posted by: The Agnew Family
Very busy day today. Ed and I were up before 5:30 to see the birds, then back to the trailer where we met up with John and Carol and drove out to the VLA (very large array) stopping in Magdalena and Kelly on the way.
A flock of Snow Geese taking off.
Sandhill Cranes taking off in the pre-dation light.
Gliding through the sky, not sure how Ed managed to get this photo as you rarely see the wings straight out like this.
Start your engines, ready for take off
Kelly was a booming mine town which was home to thousands of citizens. The mining operations sent huge shipments of lead, zinc and silver ores to smelters. Kelly was the foremost mine in New Mexico's 19th century past. 1947 saw the last residents depart. The majority of the homes were hauled down to Magdalena. Today, Kelly is a "ghost town".
The Kelly mine headframe.
Interesting men's room.
Magdalena was the railhead for the area. It was used to ship cattle from the Plains of San Agustin and to ship ore from the Kelly mine. The railway station is now the public library and an old box car beside the library is the local museum. Interesting way to add air conditioning to a box car.
One of the old buildings in Magdalena.
The EVLA (Expanded Very Large Array) consists of 27, 230-ton, 25-meter diameter dish antennas that together comprise a single radio telescope system. The EVLA will have more than 10 times the sensitivity of the VLA.
One of the antenna in the maintenance shed.
The antennas are moved around on railway track to form different configurations depending on what area of space is being looked at. If I found the correct page on the Internet the VLA is currently in the "A" array with a 21 km baseline. When Ed and I visited the VLA in 2007, we saw the VLA in a tighter configuration (the dishes were all close by).
A flock of Snow Geese taking off.
Sandhill Cranes taking off in the pre-dation light.
Gliding through the sky, not sure how Ed managed to get this photo as you rarely see the wings straight out like this.
Start your engines, ready for take off
Kelly was a booming mine town which was home to thousands of citizens. The mining operations sent huge shipments of lead, zinc and silver ores to smelters. Kelly was the foremost mine in New Mexico's 19th century past. 1947 saw the last residents depart. The majority of the homes were hauled down to Magdalena. Today, Kelly is a "ghost town".
The Kelly mine headframe.
Interesting men's room.
Magdalena was the railhead for the area. It was used to ship cattle from the Plains of San Agustin and to ship ore from the Kelly mine. The railway station is now the public library and an old box car beside the library is the local museum. Interesting way to add air conditioning to a box car.
One of the old buildings in Magdalena.
The EVLA (Expanded Very Large Array) consists of 27, 230-ton, 25-meter diameter dish antennas that together comprise a single radio telescope system. The EVLA will have more than 10 times the sensitivity of the VLA.
One of the antenna in the maintenance shed.
The antennas are moved around on railway track to form different configurations depending on what area of space is being looked at. If I found the correct page on the Internet the VLA is currently in the "A" array with a 21 km baseline. When Ed and I visited the VLA in 2007, we saw the VLA in a tighter configuration (the dishes were all close by).