The Big Ear was a radio telescope located on the grounds of the Ohio Wesleyan University's The Perkins Observatory from 1963 to 1998. It was part of The Ohio State University's Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) project. The design of Big Ear is known as Kraus-type, after Dr. John D. Kraus (1910-2004), and is also used at the Nançay Radio Telescope.
Advertisement
The Big Ear was noted in the 1995 Guinness Book of World Records as being the Radio Telescope that had worked on the SETI project for the longest period of time.
The radio telescope was disassembled in 1998 when developers purchased the site from the university, and used the land to expand a nearby golf course.