Visitors experiencing how such radiation is detected will draw fairly accurate analogies about how radio astronomy is done. Several stations could be planned around this theme. Familiar objects around the room, not optically bright, may be quite bright in the infrared. Black light and UV sensitive materials can illustrate the detection of UV radiation. The boxes will have a grid of small holes along the top.
Children can shake the boxes, and systematically probe the inside with dowels.
They can then attempt to match the object in their box to an object in a photograph. This exhibit will be a lesson in optics. Rays of light will be produced which will strike the mirrors and form a focus. Visitors can observe changes in the focused light from a focal point above the center of the symmetrical parabola, to a focal line with the spherical section, to a focal point offset from the center with the GBT like configuration. Design diagrams of the GBT, along with data showing the effects of feed legs on the response of a telescope will also be displayed.