The Very Large Array Monday, 26th January 2009 by Ian Brown The
scale of the VLA operation is quite remarkable- each dish is 25m
across and weighs 209 tonnes. They travel on train tracks which
make up each of the three 21km arms of the array. A specially
designed locomotive maneuvers the antennas into different
configurations for specific observations. The 27 antennas
effectively provide the imaging capability of an antenna 36km
wide, with the sensitivity of a dish 130m across. This allows
the study of the sun, planets, black holes, pulsars, quasars and
myriad other astronomical objects. Construction was started in
1973 and completed – $78.5million later – in 1980. Currently,
new hardware is being installed to improve the capabilites of
the observatory – making it the Expanded Very Large Array, and
funding is sought to add further dishes across the state to
expand the system even further. Google Sightseeing has covered
all sorts of telescopes in the past, some of which have received
great image updates since