One-half mile east stood the former Big Ear radio telescope, designed by Dr. John D. Kraus, a pioneering radio astronomer at Ohio State University, with a collecting area of 340 by 70 feet (104 by 21 meters) and completed in 1963. Between 1965 and 1972, the Ohio Sky Survey recorded there provided for many years the most accurate, reliable, and complete mapping of cosmic radio signals, or the radio sky. Big Ear became known for detecting quasi-stellar radio sources, or quasars, and for discovering some of the most distant objects known. It also carried out a continuous 24-year search for evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence, during which the famous Wow! signal was received in 1977. Big Ear consisted of a flat tiltable reflector, a fixed standing parabolic reflector, and pairs of receiving horn antennas; radio signals bounced off the flat reflector, were focused by the parabolic reflector, and were collected by the feed horns, while the telescope used the Earth's rotation to scan a narrow path across the sky once each day. Ohio State University and the National Science Foundation funded its design and construction, it was built almost entirely with faculty and student part-time labor, and from 1973 through 1997 it was operated and maintained by a dedicated group of volunteer scientists with generous assistance from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and private benefactors. Its successful operation depended greatly on site technician Eugene (Gene) Mikesell (1931-1987), and Big Ear was demolished in 1998.

Photo: William Fischer, Jr.

Photo: William Fischer, Jr.

Photo: William Fischer, Jr.

Photo: William Fischer, Jr.