Which Pregnant Woman gets to do this?

After a long wait, Kevin finally gets the chance to visit the telescope where his research data came from. The summer school included a one day tour of the Expanded Very Large Array (EVLA, formerly known just as the VLA) telescope on the plains of San Agustin, about an hour's drive from Socorro. It remains one of the most scientifically productive ground-based telescope in the history of astronomy, not to mention one of the most filmed as well (doesn't it look familiar?)!

Combining 27 dishes together so that they act as a giant telescope, the EVLA is currently in its most compact configuration, which means it is at its most photogenic! Otherwise, the antennas could be miles apart so that you only see one or two of them at a particular location. As they had space on the bus, Agnes was allowed to tag along to be a part of this once in a lifetime opportunity!

Seeing the entire array as our buses approached got us all excited!

When we arrived, all 150 students were divided into groups of about 17, each led by an NRAO staff on a guided tour. For our group, the first stop was one of the Long-Wavelength Array stations.

We next visited the hangar where the servicing and upgrading of the EVLA dishes are carried out.

The highlight of the day had to be 60+ foot climb up onto the dish of one of the antennas! Which other pregnant woman gets to climb up onto the dish of the EVLA? :)

We were also given a tour of the building which houses the EVLA control room, correlators and data storage.

It was an awesome experience!