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Although the star is much smaller than the Sun, the disc around HL Tauri stretches out to almost three times as far from the star as Neptune is from the Sun.

That's the caption on an approximate side-by-side comparison image. Neptune is 30.1 AU, so, 80 AU or so? In the image, the disk looks closer to two times the size, but I'm going with the words.

I've always wondered who does the "Artist's impression of" things for NASA and various other agencies. Do they just employ some CG artists full time and they're basically on-call to whip something up so they can actually publish one of these articles? How accurate are they or are just going for visual impact instead of real fidelity?

That's a great question. And might even be useful if it applied in this case.

The Atacam Large Milimeter/submilimeter Array (ALMA) is the source for the photos of the HL Tauri system, some 450 light years away.

I've always wondered who does the "Artist's impression of" things for NASA and various other agencies. Do they just employ some CG artists full time and they're basically on-call to whip something up so they can actually publish one of these articles? How accurate are they or are just going for visual impact instead of real fidelity?

That's a great question. And might even be useful if it applied in this case.

The Atacam Large Milimeter/submilimeter Array (ALMA) is the source for the photos of the HL Tauri system, some 450 light years away.

When you can go to the source?

If anyone remembers the awesome time lapse video of the ESO's VLT at Paranal, here's a downloadable time lapse video of this telescope by the same guy. FYI: the VLT is at an altitude of about 2600m, this one is at about 5000m.

Despite what the summary says, we will still have to take antennas down the mountain to service them. We just won't have to take them down specifically to service the receiver.

For those of you wondering: Alma has 2 major work sites. The Array Operations Site (AOS) at 5000 meters elevation. This is a great spot for scientific observations, but also harsh work environment. So there is also an Operations Support Facility (OSF) at 3000m where the antennas are assembled and tested. The antenna transporters, of which are far more impressive than the Front End Service Vehicle, easily move the antennas to the high site. They will also move them around at the high site, much like the different configurations of the VLA (well, now the EVLA).

Actually, moving those antennas gets boring fast - and we want to keep it that way (yes, I am currently working there). The transporter goes at a few KPH - around a fast walk. Or 1st gear, if you insist on car analogies. Moving them around is only a big deal because of the cost in time, manpower, and down time of the antenna. It is about a 1/2 day trip to take an antenna 1-way, so the time adds up fast.

You can find more on the project at our webpage here: http://www.almaobservatory.org/

Disclaimer: I work for the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (the US partner for ALMA).

There's lots more info on the transporters available on the ALMA web site. The two antenna transporters, named "Otto" and "Lore", have their own page at http://almaobservatory.org/en/technology/transporters. Each transporter actually has 2 500kW power plants (for redundancy) and cooling them at 5km altitude is a major challenge (actually, the datacenter has the same problem -- there's just not enough air up there to remove the heat).

There's lots more pictures of them carrying antennas there, too.

Finally, a video of the transporter taking the first ALMA antenna to the high site .

Disclaimer: I work for the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (the US partner for ALMA).

There's lots more info on the transporters available on the ALMA web site. The two antenna transporters, named "Otto" and "Lore", have their own page at http://almaobservatory.org/en/technology/transporters. Each transporter actually has 2 500kW power plants (for redundancy) and cooling them at 5km altitude is a major challenge (actually, the datacenter has the same problem -- there's just not enough air up there to remove the heat).

There's lots more pictures of them carrying antennas there, too.

Finally, a video of the transporter taking the first ALMA antenna to the high site .

Disclaimer: I work for the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (the US partner for ALMA).

There's lots more info on the transporters available on the ALMA web site. The two antenna transporters, named "Otto" and "Lore", have their own page at http://almaobservatory.org/en/technology/transporters. Each transporter actually has 2 500kW power plants (for redundancy) and cooling them at 5km altitude is a major challenge (actually, the datacenter has the same problem -- there's just not enough air up there to remove the heat).

There's lots more pictures of them carrying antennas there, too.

Finally, a video of the transporter taking the first ALMA antenna to the high site .

For anyone who wants to know more about the ALMA project as a whole, here's the project's main page:

http://www.almaobservatory.org/

(Disclaimer: I work for the project as a staff astronomer).