There's no place on the US mainland that has access to as much of the sky as Arecibo. From the mid-northern latitudes, you can't see the southern skies. An observatory on the equator theoretically has access to the entire sky (but only if it can point down low, toward the horizon, which Arecibo obviously couldn't). For any type of telescope, the further from the equator you go, the less area of sky is visible. One of my favorite things about visiting Peru was seeing the Big Dipper and the Southern Cross in the same sky during the same night. Hawaii's Big Island is almost, but not quite, as far south as Arecibo.
There has been no desire to support Puerto Rico for the last 4 years, why should they do it now, maybe the next 4 years it will get better with bigger and better antennas
A dish is never obsolete. What gets replaced is the equipment at the feed point-- to keep things close to state of the art. In this case the feed point is the platform suspended above the dish. Even more important is the location as AG6QR states....What W5MJF said in his post about gain of a big dish vs resolution and what K4RGN said about high power are both absolutely correct. The loss of Arecibo will leave a hole in what the Western World is capable of. If you read the link I posted about China's FAST - I was the second poster on this thread but here is the link again.....you see that not all of that telescope may be utilized simultaneously. https://www.universetoday.com/144669/chinas-500-meter-fast-radio-telescope-is-now-operational/ Arecibo in part hosted a deep space radar that was able to map a lot of things that VLA's are unable to. All of this having been said does one want to depend on the good will of China to share their facility or what science is done there? One of the earlier posters here made the very true comment about NSF like NASA being political footballs. NASA and the ULA finally managed to launch NROL101 November 14th after 9 delays, some of which were ageing infrastructure and....with Russian engines on the main rocket body. I am 69 and it to me is personally painful and angering to see this. 73 KF4VAR
The planned return to the Moon would provide an excellent opportunity to build one of these type antenna in a much bigger crater preferably on the dark side of the Moon. G3SEA/KH6
We are at that point where telescopes need to move to space. Rebuilding Arecibo will not advance science much so its far batter to invest in space platforms like the moon. Think big, win big.
We will build one on the moon and then in the future the debate will be how much damage has been done by space dust and micro meteors to it and if it is worth the bother.
What a shame for the entire science community. I had the please visiting the site few years ago. Hope some the community wakes up and finds the resources to rebuild.
Saw it up close about 25 years ago when I was on active duty (Navy) in Puerto Rico. Not much of a tourist attraction. My wife and kids were unimpressed.
It may have been physically constructed in 1963 but it is constantly upgraded. Equipment all designed and built in house. It's avery impressive place. I've been with the staff several times. These folks are the best of the best. Too bad they can't find funding.
"Here’s that we may always have a clean shirt, a clean conscience, and a guinea in our pocket." — Mine's a guinness.
