There are a number of reasons for this; basically the NSF claimed it wanted private donors, but in fact they chased them away. Too many restrictions. UCF tried but did a poor job, IMO. It's not just a question of hiring fund raising staff and working email lists. The astronomical community, most of the time, has forgotten its 'private donor' roots and fallen into the 'consensus funding' paradigm.
1990-1993. Worked my share of DX with a vertical and a TS-520S. Several QSO’s QRP! (Heathkit HW-8) my home was almost at the eastern-most edge of PR (near Ceiba, PR)
This photo provided by the Arecibo Observatory, shows the damage done by a broken cable. It sort of ruins the outdoor play-area, doesn't it.
That photo was from August. The latest damage to the dish itself is far more extensive. The dish isn't the issue anymore, its whether the 800 ton platform (above it) is going to fall. 73 Chip W1YW
If they can get the feed point platform down without a catastrophic failure why not put a much lighter Cassegrian reflector in its place on new cables.... and put the electronics down at dish level. one problem with doing it this way may be additional attenuation but the Cassegrian reflector would weigh less than what is up there on cable. Also I dont know how steerable the telescope is i.e. how much they can move various instruments at the feed point to change the objective.....being able to somewhat steer the aimpoint by slewing an instrument to illuminate one part of the reflector more than others might obviate a Cassegrian solution. As an earlier poster suggested a Gregorian solution might work. If anyone here is so interested this is a site with a lot of radio astronomy fundamentals https://www.atnf.csiro.au/research/radio-school/2011/talks/Parkes-school-Fundamental-II.pdf
"AO was never able to 'see' the whole sky, nor was it designed for that." Yes, that was my comment about needing both FAST and Arecibo and yes I understand searching for NEOs is not its primary mission. Sorry for the typo, sticky fingers I guess when I posted that.
Funny how there was enough money to build it in the first place, but not enough money to maintain and fix it. Of course, that is the way it goes with a lot of the US's infrastructure.
Cassegrains are for point feeds...spherical dishes have line feeds. Gregorians convert line foci to point focus. The dish is spheroid so it can track and not be a transit instrument. Can't do that with a Cassegrain on a spheroid.
Cassegrain! won't blame you not being fluent in French, but misspelling a so well known scientist name is impardonnable, Wouff Hong applies for less.
yep a typo and not reading before pressing post reply. Thanks very much for catching this. Misspelled it a number of times as well. "NO EXCUSES!!!! OFF WITH HIS HEAD"
Probably a cheaper replacement and possibly much larger would be in space, station keeping, geo locked, somewhere between earth and the moon. No corrosion and serviceable.
This is a shame. Seti@home has taken a lot of data packets from Arecibo and worked them on home computers. I got in in Seti@home classic a few months after they got started. :-(
