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basementcat

For those in the area, the Spring VLA Open House is also taking place on the same day.

https://public.nrao.edu/event/vla-spring-open-house-2/2019-0...

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The VLA is much cooler.

Do you mind explaining a bit? I'm trying to decide whether to go to the Trinity site or the VLA.

I've been to both sites. When I went to the VLA it was not during an open house. There's more to immediately appreciate at the VLA even if it's to drive up nearby and just look at it with a bit of awe.

The Trinity site was compelling from a historical standpoint but it's really just a patch of desert in a missile range. There was small tent set up with information in addition to the markers. Most of the time for the experience was waiting in a car on a road in the middle of nowhere and speculating about occasional bits of debris in the distance.

Both are worthwhile but I'd go for the VLA.

I love the VLA. There is a neat little visitor center that you can go to with decorative tiles in the bathroom. Apparently these were popular so people started stealing them, so I heard they sell them in the gift shop.

Other than that the exciting time is when they are moving the dishes (they are on tracks, and they move the dishes closer together / further apart). I'm trying to look up the dates, but I can't find them on their calendar now.

If you're the least bit interested in astronomy, RF technology, or both, it would be a grievous mistake to pass up a chance to tour the VLA. I've been through there twice.

So first: if you're willing to spend the night in Socorro it's pretty easy to do both. Trinity is about an hour drive and it takes about 2 hours to see it all (it'd be an hour but you have to wait for the shuttle to the house and back) then it's 2.5 to 3 hours to the VLA (don't speed through Magdalena, rez cops love to post up there) so you can be there by early afternoon.

That said. The Trinity site is some plaques, a shack and New Mexico scrub land; the VLA is (if in a close configuration) a dramatic sight, some plaques and New Mexico scrub land AND if it's an open house: the chance pick the brains of operations people.

That's the big difference, open house VLA you can talk to people who's lives are the VLA; Trinity you can talk to people who volunteered to keep tourists from doing anything stupid.

Also Also: feel free to stop by the New Mexico Tech physics department, they might not admit it but they're all willing to shoot the shit about telescopes and bombs at the drop of a hat.

Agreed, there's lots of interesting stuff to do around that part of the country if you can finagle the necessary access. Or at least, there was, back in the 'Star Wars' era.

My first visit to NM was on an ISEF-sponsored trip in 1983, when the science fair was held in Albuquerque. We didn't visit the Trinity site (or at least I didn't), but we got to play with a CO2 laser at Sandia Labs, chill out on the couches encircling the Cray 1 at Kirtland AFB, and watch the NMIMT 'Terminal Effects' group blow some stuff up in the desert. (Un)fortunately the demo was conducted with conventional explosives only, but it was still fun to watch.

There was also a gigantic wooden trestle spanning a canyon in the same area, wrapped in giant Helmholtz coils for testing aircraft under various EMP conditions. I imagine that's all done via simulation these days.

If you're in North Central WA, you can get pretty close to a single VLBA antenna in Brewster, though it is fenced off, unstaffed site.

There’s another VLBA dish on the way up Mauna Kea in the big island of Hawaii.

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