Vermilion River Observatory

Vermilion River Observatory, also known as the Vermilion River Radio Observatory (VRO), was a research facility in Illinois operated by the University of Illinois.

About Vermilion River Observatory

Founded in 1959 and active until 1984, the observatory occupied a 420-acre site and was a pioneering facility in radio astronomy, built to take advantage of the local terrain in an unusually creative way.

History

Over its 25 years of operation, VRO served as a working University of Illinois research site, contributing to the early decades of American radio astronomy before closing in 1984.

Telescopes & research

The observatory's signature instrument was a 400-foot (about 120-metre) linear parabolic radio telescope that used the natural shape of the land to form its reflector, paired with an antenna array. Rather than physically steering a dish, the design relied on the Earth's own rotation to sweep a sector of the sky, letting the instrument survey astronomical radio sources as the planet turned beneath it.

Location & getting there

The 420-acre site's scale reflects the size needed for a fixed reflector telescope of this kind, a distinctive piece of mid-20th-century radio astronomy infrastructure on the Illinois landscape.

Visiting Vermilion River Observatory

As a decommissioned research facility that closed in 1984, Vermilion River Observatory is not an active public observatory today; those interested in the site's history should look to University of Illinois archives or local historical resources.

See your named star from here

Radio telescopes like VRO's worked by tracking positions in the sky using the same coordinate systems used for optical stargazing today, including the RA/Dec position of a named star. Name a star or browse the catalogue to find one to view from an active observatory near you.