Sunday, September 21, 2008

Green Bank Telescope & Huntersville School

100_4834

This is the reason we haven't been able to post for days.

This is the Green Bank National Radio Astronomy Observatory, a facility with 8 radio telescopes. There is a 60 mile radius from here where there are no TV, Cell towers, radio stations, They don't even allow digital camera's past a distant viewing point because of the interference. The facility gives guided tours and has a visitors center with much educational material explaining radio transmissions in astronomy. For Linda this was a must see but we both found the technology far beyond our understanding. This thing is HUGE!!! The dish size approaches 2.5 acres, it is the largest movable steel object in the world at 21 million pounds. They are using this telescope to view objects 100-1000 light years from earth. That figure sounded impressive until I asked for the definition of a light year. The distance that light will travel in one years time = 60 Trillion miles. So when you multiply that by 100 or 1000 I've not only lost count, I wouldn't know the correct terminology. Even though it is of enormous size it can rotate and tilt the dish to shield it from heavy snow loads in 20 minutes. The facility is unique in that it uses one telescope while others use a bank of telescopes to attain similar results.

After our minds were boggled by the science our next stop was more down to earth. In Huntersville, WV there stands the only Two story, Two room school house. It was built in 1880 and ceased operation in 1970. We didn't have any directions to find it so when cruisin' through Huntersville I just spotted Schoolhouse Rd. and turned there. well just up the road there it was. Turns out there were people working on the restoration and they invited us in and gave us a tour. The woman who showed us around just happened to attend school there as a child. 100_4837

 

The Huntersville School.

 

 

 

100_4838

 

 

Classroom out of the 70's? 

 

 

OK so now it's back to camp at Greenbrier Forest. See ya' down the road as we're.....

Dancin' on the Wind.

No comments: