Up Close: The William Gordon Telescope

Based in Puerto Rico, this is the world’s largest single-aperture radio telescope. People come here to view the planets of the solar system passing through the northern half of their orbit.

  • Words + Photography: Enrico Sacchetti

The William Gordon Telescope was completed in 1963 and is the world's largest single-aperture radio telescope, located at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. The main collecting dish measures 305 metres and is the biggest curved focusing dish on Earth, giving Arecibo the largest electromagnetic wave-gathering capacity globally.

Puerto Rico’s location allows the telescope to view the planets in the solar system over the northern half of their orbit. I arrived at the Arecibo Observatory around 4pm and was briefly shown around the various parts of the telescope. The plan was to check into my hotel and head straight back out for some evening shots, when it began to rain. Luckily I knew, as we were on a tropical Island, that the rain would probably cease soon enough and I made my way out to the site, where I was rewarded with this wonderful view of misty fog enveloping the telescope.

Enrico Sacchetti is a photographer based between Rome and London

Article taken from

Issue 02
Articles

Further Reading

View All

Up Close: Wall of Death

The stuntmen of Allahabad, north India, risk their lives daily by riding motorbikes around vertical walls made from salvaged wood. Defying gravity through sheer momentum, they create a vertiginous, noisy whirl of action to enthrall the crowds.

Wooden Skyscrapers

Experts are proclaiming that wood is the answer to the global housing crisis. Michael Green, arguably the most ambitious and visionary architect working in this medium, explains how it’s possible to recreate the Empire State Building in wood.

A Hundred Hills

Photographer Jack Davison captures a styled journey in the hills of Yr Wyddfa, Snowdon, Snowdonia.

Landscape For Giants

A collaboration between Inuit of Baffin Island and Canada Goose has elevated recycling into a dynamic tool for community building.

Life Inside a Saturation Chamber

‘It’s quicker to get back from the moon than from the depths we work at’: Inside one of the world’s most isolated jobs.

Unearth

Unrefined beauty: photographs taken from a small plane with its door removed reveal Rotterdam’s ore deposits and oil refineries to be an unexpected wellspring for an imposing abstract series.
Browse by Category