I visited Jodrell Bank as a member of a group
organised by Friends of the Royal Astronomical Society, to see the famous
Lovell Telescope, hear a talk from the Director Prof Simon Garrington and visit
the Control Room of the observatory.
The dominant feature of The Jodrell Bank Observatory is of course the radio telescope, one of the world’s largest, known as the
Lovell telescope
Walking up close to the telescope one is struck by its sheer size and the
beauty of its design.
Notices scattered along the footpath tell you to switch off
your mobile phones as signals would interfere with the radio signals collected and
relate simple facts about the work of the telescope.
The Discovery Centre which receives thousands of visitors is home to exhibits and visual
presentations describing basic astronomical concepts.
Prof Garrington’s illustrated talk described
the present set-up of the observatory, its early work and its current importance
as the organisational ‘hub’ of present national array of radio telescopes
across England (e-Merlin) and in the future
international radio astronomical research (SKA).
The conclusion of our trip was a visit to
the Control Room, where the BBC Stargazing Live TV programme is filmed. A brief
illustrated talk by a resident radio- astronomer explained how radio signal
data collected at the observatory are processed to produce a meaningful image
of the target radio source to resolutions in the order of microarcseconds, as
good as or better than the resolution seen in Hubble optical images.
Thanks to Marcus Hope of Friends of the RAS
for
organising the trip.
