Arecibo Radio-Telescope Observatory

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NOTE: THIS DISH NO LONGER EXISTSTHE IMAGE THAT YOU SEE BELOW IS OF WHAT IT ONCE WAS.

You’ve seen it many times. Hol­ly­wood has filmed sev­er­al impor­tant movies there. But did you know that it’s right here in Puer­to Rico?

That’s right!  It’s about a two-hour dri­ve from the San Juan Metro­plex and it’s absolute­ly breath­tak­ing!  Many of the scenes for Jodi Fos­ter’s 1997 block­buster hit “Con­tact” were filmed right there in Areci­bo and in the sur­round­ing towns.  Two years before, Pierce Bros­man filmed his James Bond megahit Gold­en Eye at the same location.

And let me tell you, this thing is a jaw drop­per.  The 1,000-foot dish is the largest in the world!  It’s 167 feet deep in the mid­dle, has a 90-ton plat­form sus­pend­ed 450 feet above the cen­ter and the whole facil­i­ty cov­ers an area of over 20 acres.  Its sur­face is made of thou­sands of per­fo­rat­ed alu­minum pan­els, each mea­sur­ing 3 x 6 feet.

The site is open to the pub­lic Wednes­days thru Sun­days, from 9:00am to 4:00pm. Admis­sion is $10 for adults and $6.00 for chil­dren and seniors.  This includes access to the radio tele­scope area as well as the vis­i­tor’s cen­ter, where you can enjoy a vari­ety of sci­en­tif­ic exhibits.

Orlando Mergal buys all his photo equipment at B&H

Dis­clo­sure of Mate­r­i­al Con­nec­tion: Some of the links in this post are “affil­i­ate links.” This means that if you click on a link and pur­chase an item, I will receive an affil­i­ate com­mis­sion. Regard­less, I only rec­om­mend prod­ucts or ser­vices that I use per­son­al­ly and believe will add val­ue to my read­ers. I am dis­clos­ing this in accor­dance with the Fed­er­al Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Con­cern­ing the Use of Endorse­ments and Tes­ti­mo­ni­als in Advertising.”

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