Chile Travel, December 1995
Description
In December 1995 on Chajnantor, Geraldo Valladares, Norio Kaifu, Hernan Quintana, Tony Readhead, Paul Vanden Bout, Naomasa Nakai, and Junji Inatani pause for a photo in front of the ALMA operations base on Chajnantor for NRAO, a 20 foot (6 m) long ocean shipping container, still in place on the site. The container provided shelter for personnel and physical support for the instruments. It also had an array of solar panels (visible in back of the container) to supply electrical power, which could supply about 500 W continuously (24 VDC and 110 VAC 60 Hz), with sufficient reserve capacity to weather a storm of a few days. With ca. 2005 instrumentation, this system operated near capacity. Funding for site characterization ceased in 2005 but some equipment continued to operate, monitoring phase stability, until an errant bulldozer severed the interferometer cable in 2009. During their December 1995 trip, the group pictured here made multiple site visits, going to the "NRAO site," the "European site," and the "Japanese site." Photo taken by Angel Otarola
Creator
Papers of Paul A. Vanden Bout
Rights
Contact Archivist for rights information.
Type
Still Image
Original Format of Digital Item
Slide
People
Location
Start Date
1995-12
Photographer
Photo Credit
NRAO/AUI/NSF
Series
Millimeter Array (MMA) Series
Range #
7A
Box #
1
Citation
Papers of Paul A. Vanden Bout, “Chile Travel, December 1995,” NRAO/AUI Archives, accessed August 17, 2024, https://www.nrao.edu/archives/items/show/35448.