After visiting with family for several weeks, we head farther south and to the East coast of Florida for a family wedding.

We head down a day early to enjoy a day on the beach in New Smyrna.  The motel we booked is old, really old.  It is possible that the building is older than we are but renovated multiple times. 

The motel has a nice cafe/bar overlooking the Atlantic.

They have some nice choices for dinner and some interesting mixed drinks available.

We got going early to see the sunrise, walk the beach, and find someplace for breakfast.

We checked out and visited the nearby park for a walk.

Helping Mom and Dad with some organizing a bedroom, we came across framed pictures from our wedding. 

WOW! She is pretty. Love you so much and even more each day.

We were and are still so much in love.

We will be staying for a while at Lake Stone.  Much of our time will be visiting family.

Back to Pensacola and enjoying a few days at the beach.  A last minute reservation at Fort Pickens is rare but we got one.

There were some surprises on the beach.  At sometime in the few days before we arrived lots of Man-of-War jellyfish were on the sand.  They looked like little blue balloons.  We warned several people what they were and not to touch them.

We had several very nice days to look for shells and enjoy the waves.

Fun time. Good food.  Pretty sunsets.

After visiting with our daughter, Phyllis, we drove down to the coast of Texas for a few days on the Gulf.

After stopping to top off our fresh tank, we set up in our site which has no hookups (No water, electric,...). The batteries and solar panels made this not an issue.  We did take some "Navy Showers" where you wet down, turn off the water, soap up, rinse off.  No unnecessary waste of water.

Sunrises were pretty.

We are here for several days and it has been very quiet.

A coyote visited our site.

Lots of time on the beach.

Off to Pensacola.

Warning: Ok instead of just history this will include a bit of science.

The VLA project started in 1961 when the process of designing the VLA was proposed to the scientific communities and then the government.   Extraterrestrial Radio waves were first detected in 1933 by Karl Jansky of Bell Telephone Laboratories.  He found radio wave radiation coming from the Milky Way. Later observations identified different sources of radio emission. So many new discoveries stars, galaxies, quasars, pulsars, masers. Even the discovery of evidence for the Big Bang theory was made with radio astronomy. By 1937, the first parabolic radio telescope started observations in Wheaton, Illinois.  Many more observatories were built over the next 20 years.

In 1961, National Radio Astronomy Organization began designing a radio telescope that could make images with the resolution comparable to the best optical telescopes. By 1967 a proposal for the construction of the Very Large Array (VLA) was made but it was not until 1970 that  approval was made for construction.

I had seen articles about the proposal while in middle school and it sparked a lot of interest in the project.  With optical telescopes we observe only a small amount of the energy we could if we used other instruments.  Radio astronomy expands on that range dramatically.

The VLA was complete in 1980 for $78M making it by far the most powerful and most successful radio telescope ever built.   High power computers in combination with specialized mathematics such as  Fourier transform combine the data from multiple antennas creates a virtual "lens" the size distance between the separation in the combined dishes.  If the distance between the end of each "arm" of dishes is 5 miles then the telescope would act as a 5 mile wide lens.  The more dishes spread along each arm the more focus the lens would have making a clearer observation.  

The valley where the VLA was constructed was selected for its distance from any large city and the walls of the valley blocking almost any interference. The 28 dishes are 82 feet in diameter weighing over 200 tons each and mounted double parallel railroad tracks that extend for 13 miles in a Y.  This allows the dishes to be moved close together for some observations and far apart for others.  The dishes are locked together and move as one. They are surprisingly fast when they swing to point to a new position in the sky. When the dishes need to be in a different configuration they are lifted one at a time and moved to a new ground mount by a special locomotive designed just for that purpose.

The area has special restrictions on electronics of any kind.  No cell towers or use of cell phones in the area.  Anything that could produce radio waves is checked. Even microwave ovens are restricted. 

VLA Electronic Device Policy:
Please have ALL electronic devices (cell phones, tablets, or anything else with an “On/Off” switch) in airplane mode, with Wifi and Bluetooth powered off. Power down your device. 

If you plan to use your electronic device to take photographs, you may briefly turn them on (while in airplane mode) to take your pictures, and then power your device off again once you’ve done so.

Please turn off ALL WIFI and Bluetooth devices including GPS, back up cameras, wireless headphones, Fitbit, etc. This includes devices both on your person and in your vehicle.

Visitors arriving in RVs should ensure all electronic devices are off. The use of microwave ovens while on site even in your RV is strictly prohibited.

Digital and film cameras are allowed. Visitors may take pictures of anything they wish inside and outside of the buildings from the designated visitor path.

We even took off our watches and left them in the truck as they are Bluetooth.

We checked in at the visitors building which includes a museum and gift shop.

There are several displays outside on the grounds.

We walked out to one of the dishes.  It is near the center of the array and actively in use for observations.

Several movies have had scenes filmed at the VLA. Terminator Salvation (2009), Armageddon (1998), and Contact (1997).  Because the VLA is never offline and always observing anyone requesting to film finds there are very strict requirements for having a crew working on site.  The scientists sometimes have reserved times years in advance and are not interested in having their plans disrupted.

The locomotive was at the "Barn".

The new dishes have more range and many more will be installed.  Instead of 29 dishes there will be more than 200 eighteen meter antennas.  They will be spread across a much larger area and some will even be in Mexico.  This will make the observatory 10 times more sensitive.  It will also be in a spiral pattern. 

We returned to Socorro and that night were able to just barely see the comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS C2023 A3.  

We start our trip back to Logan in the morning.

Breakfast and talking with new friends.

Our plan is to visit the VLA (Very Large Array).  This is the National Radio Astronomy Observatory.  I have wanted to visit the array since the 1980s.

Breakfast at 5:30am. We slept in a bit.  This has been an amazing event just exhausting.

Then watching the morning glow and balloons flying overhead till about 10 am. Several dropped into the far end of the field. We did not help any this morning.

We got the schedule.

Several came down on the far end of the field near the RVs.  Only one came down on our side.  I ran out to help hold down the basket but - GET THIS -  he actually set down to get some coffee.  That is some serious skills. The Fantasy Caravan people ran out with a couple cups of coffee and some breakfast pastry.   The pilot asked me to look around for any balloons above and give him two thumbs up if he was clear.  I did and ran back over to hold down the basket while he put some heat into the balloon until he was pulling up on us.  He told us to release and away they went to the south over the RVs including ours.

Nice morning.