Post #4240312
2026-07-28 21:17 UTC
At the top of the lift you are still in the tower that rotates the dish in altitude (up/down). So you are still on a structure that has a floor that is always parallel to the ground. But you then have to step over onto this gantry that moves with the dish. Obviously you only do this when the dish is "parked" pointing upwards.
Replies (1)
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@slowe@mastodon.me.uk 2026-07-28 21:21
You might be thinking that the bowl you could see there was the underside of the shiny white surface. But it is actually the underside of the original surface from 1957. When they upgraded the telescope in the 1970s they put a new surface, with a different curvature, above the old surface. The result is a big cavern between the "old" and "new" surfaces. Apologies for the blurry shot - blame my 2002 digital camera.