The Reber Radio Telescope is a historic radio telescope, located at the

Green Bank Observatory The Green Bank Observatory (previously National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Green Bank) is an astronomical observatory located in the National Radio Quiet Zone in Green Bank, West Virginia, U.S. It is the operator of the Robert C. Byrd Green Ba ...

near

Green Bank, West Virginia Green Bank is a census-designated place in Pocahontas County in West Virginia's Potomac Highlands inside the Allegheny Mountain Range. Green Bank is located along WV 28. Green Bank is home to the Green Bank Observatory and is also close to the ...

. Built in 1937 in

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolitan areas include, Peoria and Roc ...

by astronomer

Grote Reber Grote Reber (December 22, 1911 – December 20, 2002) was an American pioneer of radio astronomy, which combined his interests in amateur radio and amateur astronomy. He was instrumental in investigating and extending Karl Jansky's pioneering w ...

, it is the first purpose-built parabolic radio telescope. It was designated a

National Historic Landmark A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the United States government for its outstanding historical significance. Only some 2,500 (~3%) of over 90,000 places listed ...

in 1989. and

Description and history

The Reber Radio Telescope is located on the grounds of the Green Bank Observatory (formerly part of the

National Radio Astronomy Observatory The National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) is a federally funded research and development center of the United States National Science Foundation operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc. for the purpose of radio ...

) in rural

Pocahontas County, West Virginia Pocahontas County is a county located in the U.S. state of West Virginia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 7,869. Its county seat is Marlinton. The county was established in 1821. It is named after the daughter of the Powhatan chie ...

. It consists of a parabolic reflector composed of 72 radial rafters and covered in 26 gauge iron sheeting with a focal length of . It is in diameter, and is mounted on arched rails positioned on railroad wheels, allowing its angle of elevation to be controlled. The telescope was built by astronomer

in his back yard in

Wheaton, Illinois Wheaton is a suburban city in Milton and Winfield Townships and is the county seat of DuPage County, Illinois. It is located approximately west of Chicago. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 52,894, which was estimated ...

in 1937, following up on the research of

Karl Jansky Karl Guthe Jansky (October 22, 1905 – February 14, 1950) was an American physicist and radio engineer who in April 1933 first announced his discovery of radio waves emanating from the Milky Way in the constellation Sagittarius. He is considere ...

, the discoverer (in 1933) of radio waves emanating from the

Milky Way The Milky Way is the galaxy that includes our Solar System, with the name describing the galaxy's appearance from Earth: a hazy band of light seen in the night sky formed from stars that cannot be individually distinguished by the naked ey ...

. It was the second radio telescope ever built (after Jansky's dipole array), and the first parabolic radio telescope, serving as a prototype for the first large dish radio telescopes such as the

Green Bank Telescope The Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope (GBT) in Green Bank, West Virginia, US is the world's largest fully steerable radio telescope, surpassing the Effelsberg 100-m Radio Telescope in Germany. The Green Bank site was part of the National Rad ...

and

Lovell Telescope The Lovell Telescope is a radio telescope at Jodrell Bank Observatory, near Goostrey, Cheshire in the north-west of England. When construction was finished in 1957, the telescope was the largest steerable dish radio telescope in the world a ...

constructed after

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

. Reber was the world's only

radio astronomer Radio astronomy is a subfield of astronomy that studies Astronomical object, celestial objects at radio frequency, radio frequencies. The first detection of radio waves from an astronomical object was in 1933, when Karl Jansky at Bell Telephone La ...

at the time, and his construction of the telescope and the sky surveys he did with it helped found the field of

radio astronomy Radio astronomy is a subfield of astronomy that studies celestial objects at radio frequencies. The first detection of radio waves from an astronomical object was in 1933, when Karl Jansky at Bell Telephone Laboratories reported radiation comi ...

, revealing radio sources such as

Cassiopeia A Cassiopeia A (Cas A) () is a supernova remnant (SNR) in the constellation Cassiopeia and the brightest extrasolar radio source in the sky at frequencies above 1 GHz. The supernova occurred approximately away within the Milky Way ...

and

Cygnus X-1 Cygnus X-1 (abbreviated Cyg X-1) is a galactic X-ray source in the constellation Cygnus and was the first such source widely accepted to be a black hole. It was discovered in 1964 during a rocket flight and is one of the s ...

for the first time. Reber sold the telescope to the US

National Bureau of Standards The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is an agency of the United States Department of Commerce whose mission is to promote American innovation and industrial competitiveness. NIST's activities are organized into physical sci ...

and it was moved to

Sterling, Virginia Sterling, Virginia, refers most specifically to a census-designated place (CDP) in Loudoun County, Virginia, United States. The population of the CDP as of the 2010 United States Census was 27,822. The CDP boundaries are confined to a relatively ...

. It later became the property of the

(NRAO) and was moved to Boulder, Colorado, before being moved to the Green Bank facility. It was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artist ...

in 1972 and declared a

in 1989.

References

{{Portal bar, Astronomy, Stars, Spaceflight, Outer space, Solar System, Education, Science National Historic Landmarks in West Virginia Buildings and structures in Pocahontas County, West Virginia Astronomical observatories in West Virginia Radio telescopes National Register of Historic Places in Pocahontas County, West Virginia

Description and history

See also

References