Very Large Array. View of the 25-metre antennas that make up the Very Large Array (VLA) on the Plains of San Agustin, New Mexico, USA. The VLA, part of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), consists of 27 of these radio antennas arranged in a Y-configuration along railroad tracks. This allows them to be moved into different configurations by a rail-mounted crane. The signals from the antennae are combined to make the array equivalent to a radio dish 36 kilometres across. The VLA, opened in 1980, is used to study objects such as radio galaxies, quasars, pulsars, supernova remnants, and gamma ray bursts.