Legacy Astronomical Images

Title and dates of the collection: Legacy Astronomical Images Collection, 1978-2012

Size of the collection: 290 digital images

Description: This is a collection of selected astronomical images taken with NRAO instruments through 2012.

Administrative History: The NRAO's first site and first telescopes were in Green Bank WV, but by 2000 there were offices and additional telescopes in Green Bank WV, Charlottesville VA, Tucson AZ, and Socorro NM. The Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA), with 8 antennas in the continental U.S. and one each in Hawaii and the U.S. Virgin Islands, is operated from Socorro. The NRAO, in cooperation with the European Southern Observatory, the National Research Council of Canada, National Institutes of Natural Sciences of Japan, and the Republic of Chile, also operates the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in northern Chile.

Accession history: These images were originally managed by NRAO as an online gallery of selected astronomical images for researchers and the public. Images were added through 2012, at which time NRAO's Education and Public Outreach Department created a new online NRAO Image Gallery. In 2021 the old gallery of images was transferred to the Archives.

Publication rights: NRAO/AUI/NSF does not hold full copyright to many of the images in this collection. Contact the Archivist for details on specific images and to request permission to publish any image. Click here for NRAO's Image Use Policy.

Processing notes: Images were transfered from the old EPO online gallery and jpgs were created for all the images. High resolution tifs are available for many of the images. Contact the Archivist for details.

Click links below to navigate through the collection.