<Full well you know that offset dishes have the feed arm at the bottom to allow the dish to be mounted upright and catch less snow! You didn't think I swallowed that techno-twaddle, now did you? >
Yawn....I submit for your consideration "Exhibit A"...the mighty GBT...
http://info.gb.nrao.edu/
Now if you see a bottom-mounted offset there, I will buy you a case of your favorite "served-nearly-frozen" American beer!
Even though it snows (a lot!) in Green Bank, the SIGNAL is more important to the astronomers than potential snow load....
....besides, they can't receive signals through snowstorms any better than our backyard DSS dishes, so they tilt it horizontally to lessen any accumulation if a storm approaches. They stay on top of the weather up there BIG TIME; compare the size of the dish to the sails on an old windjammer. Can you imagine the WIND LOAD on that baby during a storm? If they didn't "feather" that thing, they'd be picking up panels over in Virginia!!!
PS...If anyone will design me a beautiful radio telescope avatar with a correctly placed offset feed (so that Joe will not be irritated every time he sees it
) and some form of animation on the incoming signal, I would be willing to pay them a reasonable fee.
Don