The Big Dish

I had a blast going out to see the North Liberty radio telescope the other day. Yes, it was just about three weeks ago that I sent a mass e-mail out to a bunch of friends and family members, bragging that I lived only a couple miles from one of the most sensitive satellite dishes in the world. I claimed that is so sensitive, it can pick up the sound of a pin landing on the moon’s surface. At least that’s what I’ve read.

My friend, Cole, responded to my e-mail, and said he wanted to take his five-year old son out to see it. I heard from one other friend on that mailing list, and the three of us made plans to go out sometime soon.

Cole called me at 11 a.m. last Saturday, and told me he was on his way out, did I want to come along? He thought Zack, his five year old, would get a kick out of seeing a satellite dish that was 82 feet wide and weighed 240 tons. I don’t know about Zack, but I loved it.

I’ve lived in North Liberty for five years and had no idea that a gigantic interstellar ear was parked two miles north of my house. Now you are hearing this from a long time science and technology buff, and avid fan of the original Star Trek, Star Wars, and “2001: A Space Odyssey.”

For those of you who may not have read about it, the North Liberty radio telescope (I like to call it the “big dish”) is part of a 10-dish system that acts like one gigantic antenna, collecting data from regions in deep space for various astronomers. On January 14th, it helped NASA and the European Space Agency receive signals from a spaceship that left seven years ago and was just now reaching Saturn, 750 million miles away. There were articles in the North Liberty Leader, Gazette, and Iowa City Press Citizen about the big event on January 14th.

I guess scientists were jumping up and down with joy at the end of January because the 350 pictures that were sent back revealed lots of interesting geography of Titan, Saturn’s largest moon. It turns out that Titan looks a lot like earth did, before it had life on it.

As I followed Cole out to the big dish, I was surprised to see the turnoff marked by a sign. I figured that the dish would be stuck in the wilderness almost impossible to find. I must say though, that I found the letters on the sign—“NRAO”—to be a bit obscure. I GUESS it meant “big white satellite dish,” in some special language of the scientists.

As luck would have it, Cole and Zack and I had had barely gotten out of our respective cars to go peer at the dish from behind the chain link fence, when a fellow pulled up to the locked gate and began unlocking the padlock. It turned out he was the station technician, Mike Burgert, and he let us walk on in to get a closer look.

Mr. Burgert was about as friendly as could be, and five-year-old Zack felt comfortable enough with him to address him by first name whenever he asked him a question. Actually, it was usually the same question, “Mike, is that pointing at a star now?” “Mike, is that pointing at a star NOW?” “Mike, what is it doing now?”

As I chatted with Mr. Burgert, Cole and Zack started to walk in a big circle around the Big Dish. However, when they got within 15 feet of it, it started to move! The monster dish was on a movable track and could rotate! A few moments later, the whole dish began to tilt backward about ten degrees. It was very, very cool. It reminded me of how a dog tilts its ears at various angles in order to hear better; only in this case, some of the “sounds” it was picking up was light years away from earth. I made Cole take a picture of me in front of it. In turn, I took a picture of him and Zack.

Before we left, Mike said I could come back during one of the big dish’s “down times,” and he would take me to the top of it. I haven’t quite decided whether to take him up on the invitation. I have trouble enough climbing on ladders ten feet high let alone those that are ten stories high. Mike explained that he makes the same offer to kids on his high school tours, but many of them back off after they have reached the first platform. That made me feel better.

Later that day, I told my coworker, Todd, about visiting the Big Dish. The next day, Superbowl Sunday, he took his whole family out there. So far, four of the people I’ve told about the dish, have gone out to see it, and they were all from Iowa City.

I like having the Big Dish in North Liberty. And doesn’t it give the “North” in North Liberty a brand new meaning?

[North Liberty VLBA/National Radio Astronomy Observatory, 2269 Mehaffey Bridge Road NE, North Liberty, IA 52317, DJ Beard, Station Manager 319-626-6878.]