Recollections of "Tucson Operations": The Millimeter-Wave Observatory of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory: Astrophysics and Space Science Library, cartea 323

The Early Years.- Construction of the Telescope.- Radio Lines from Molecules.- Dispatched to Tucson.- Expanding the Tucson Facilities.- Providing Adequate Electricity.- Lightning and Kitt Peak.- Software.- Millimeter-Wave Electronics.- Quantifying mm-Wave Astronomy.- Scheduling.- Improving the Performance of the 36-ft Telescope.- The 25-m Telescope.- Odds and Ends.- The MMA and ALMA.- The Twilight Years.

This book is a personal account of the evolution of millimeter-wave astronomy at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory. It begins with the construction of the hugely successful, but flawed, 36 ft radio telescope on Kitt Peak, Arizona, and continues through the funding of its ultimate successor, the Atacama Large Millimeter-wave Array (ALMA), being constructed on a 5.000 m (16.500 ft) site in northern Chile. The book describes the behind-the-scene activities of the NRAO Tucson staff. These include the identification and solution of technical problems, the scheduling and support of visiting astronomers, and the preparations and the politics of the proposal to replace the 36 ft telescope with a 25 m telescope on Mauna Kea, Hawaii. The book also describes the installation of a new 12 m surface and the involvement of the Tucson staff in the ALMA project. Finally, it describes events leading to the closing of the 36 ft telescope and, eventually, of the NRAO offices in Tucson.

No books have been published yet on this subject Rather unique monograph presenting one of the key stories in the history of mm-wave observations in the USA (and therefore pretty much in the world) Comes at the right moment The mm-wave part of the spectrum is about the last window that remains to be opened for ground-based astronomy (gravitational waves being the other part) Currently, two major new telescopes (GTM and ALMA) are being built to operate in the mm-wave band They can be seen as a direct spin-off of the Tucson Operations ALMA (see www.alma.nrao.edu/info) is the most internationally and heavily sponsored project (at least 500 million dollar) and will become operational in 2007 With these new tools arriving within a few years, the astronomical community is funding an increasing amount of projects in mm-wave astronomy Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras