1940s
- 1945, December — Bernard Lovell arrives at Jodrell Bank with several trailers of radar equipment from World War II. [2]
- 1947 — The 66 meter Transit Telescope is constructed. [3] [4]
This is a timeline of Jodrell Bank Observatory .
A radio telescope is a specialized antenna and radio receiver used to detect radio waves from astronomical radio sources in the sky. Radio telescopes are the main observing instrument used in radio astronomy, which studies the radio frequency portion of the electromagnetic spectrum emitted by astronomical objects, just as optical telescopes are the main observing instrument used in traditional optical astronomy which studies the light wave portion of the spectrum coming from astronomical objects. Unlike optical telescopes, radio telescopes can be used in the daytime as well as at night.
Jodrell Bank Observatory in Cheshire, England, hosts a number of radio telescopes as part of the Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics at the University of Manchester. The observatory was established in 1945 by Bernard Lovell, a radio astronomer at the university, to investigate cosmic rays after his work on radar in the Second World War. It has since played an important role in the research of meteoroids, quasars, pulsars, masers and gravitational lenses, and was heavily involved with the tracking of space probes at the start of the Space Age.
Sir Alfred Charles Bernard Lovell was an English physicist and radio astronomer. He was the first director of Jodrell Bank Observatory, from 1945 to 1980.
The Multi-Element Radio Linked Interferometer Network (MERLIN) is an interferometer array of radio telescopes spread across England. The array is run from Jodrell Bank Observatory in Cheshire by the University of Manchester on behalf of Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC).
Parkes Observatory is a radio astronomy observatory, located 20 kilometres (12 mi) north of the town of Parkes, New South Wales, Australia. It hosts Murriyang, the 64 m CSIRO Parkes Radio Telescope also known as "The Dish", along with two smaller radio telescopes. The 64 m dish was one of several radio antennae used to receive live television images of the Apollo 11 Moon landing. Its scientific contributions over the decades led the ABC to describe it as "the most successful scientific instrument ever built in Australia" after 50 years of operation.
Messier 28 or M28, also known as NGC 6626, is a globular cluster of stars in the center-west of Sagittarius. It was discovered by French astronomer Charles Messier in 1764. He briefly described it as a "nebula containing no star... round, seen with difficulty in 31⁄2-foot telescope; Diam 2′."
The Lovell Telescope is a radio telescope at Jodrell Bank Observatory, near Goostrey, Cheshire in the north-west of England. When construction was finished in 1957, the telescope was the largest steerable dish radio telescope in the world at 76.2 m (250 ft) in diameter; it is now the third-largest, after the Green Bank telescope in West Virginia, United States, and the Effelsberg telescope in Germany. It was originally known as the "250 ft telescope" or the Radio Telescope at Jodrell Bank, before becoming the Mark I telescope around 1961 when future telescopes were being discussed. It was renamed to the Lovell Telescope in 1987 after Sir Bernard Lovell, and became a Grade I listed building in 1988. The telescope forms part of the MERLIN and European VLBI Network arrays of radio telescopes.
A. David Andrews is an Irish astronomer. He studied at Oriel College Oxford and University of Dublin. He spent the early 1960s in Denmark working with the astrophysicist M. Rudkjobing at the Aarhus Observatory. He moved on in 1963 to Armagh Observatory in Northern Ireland where he spent the next 35 years. Dr Andrews discovered the minor planet 1727 Mette whilst at the Boyden Observatory located in Bloemfontein, South Africa, where he was acting director. It was while at Boyden Observatory that he commenced his lifelong work on flare stars. He was the first to make full use of computers, in 1968, at Armagh Observatory. Andrews was Editor of the Irish Astronomical Journal following Ernst Öpik, and in 1967 became a founder member of Commission 27 Working Group on Flare Stars of the International Astronomical Union.
Sir Henry Charles Husband, often known as H. C. Husband, was a leading British civil and consulting engineer from Sheffield, England, who designed bridges and other major civil engineering works. He is particularly known for his work on the Jodrell Bank radio telescopes; the first of these was the largest fully steerable radio telescope in the world on its completion in 1957. Other projects he was involved in designing include the Goonhilly Satellite Earth Station's aerials, one of the earliest telecobalt radiotherapy units, Sri Lanka's tallest building, and the rebuilding of Robert Stephenson's Britannia Bridge after a fire. He won the Royal Society's Royal Medal and the Wilhelm Exner Medal.
The Institute of Astronomy of Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, known prior to 1 October 2019 in scientific publications as the Toruń Centre for Astronomy, is an optical and radio observatory located at in Piwnice, about 15 km north of Toruń, Poland. It houses two single-dish antenna telescopes, 32 metres and 15 metres in diameter, as well as the largest Polish optical telescope – 90 cm Schmidt-Cassegrain camera. The facility is operated by the Nicolaus Copernicus University. Also, photometry using 60 cm Cassegrain telescope is made and radio measurements of the Sun at 127 MHz frequency have been recorded on a daily basis since 1958 using a 23 m interferometer.
The Mark II is a radio telescope located at Jodrell Bank Observatory, near Goostrey, Cheshire, in the north-west of England. It was built on the site of the 218 ft (66.4 m) Transit Telescope. Construction was completed in 1964. The telescope's design was used as the basis of the 85 ft (26 m) Goonhilly 1 dish, and the Mark III telescope is also based on a similar design.
The Mark III was a portable and fully steerable radio telescope located at Wardle, near Nantwich, Cheshire in the north-west of England. Constructed in 1966, it was remotely controlled from Jodrell Bank Observatory, and was mainly used as part of the MERLIN radio telescope network. It was designed by Charles Husband at the instigation of Bernard Lovell.
The Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics at the University of Manchester, is among the largest astrophysics groups in the UK. It includes the Jodrell Bank Observatory, the MERLIN/VLBI National Facility, and the Jodrell Bank Visitor Centre. The centre was formed after the merger of the Victoria University of Manchester and UMIST which brought two astronomy groups together. The Jodrell Bank site also hosts the headquarters of the SKA Observatory (SKAO) - the International Governmental Organisation (IGO) tasked with the delivery and operation of the Square Kilometre Array, created on the signing of the Rome Convention in 2019. The SKA will be the largest telescope in the world - construction is expected to start at the end of this decade.
Thomas Boles is a Scottish amateur astronomer, discoverer of astronomical objects, author, broadcaster and former communications and computer engineer, who observes from his private "Coddenham Observatory" in Coddenham, Suffolk, United Kingdom. He is known for having discovered a record number of supernovae. The main-belt asteroid 7648 Tomboles is named in his honor.
Marek Janusz Kukula is a British astronomer and an author of works on popular science. After gaining a PhD in radio astronomy from the University of Manchester in 1994, he specialised in studying distant galaxies. As his research reached the limits of telescopes, he moved into the field of public engagement. In 2008 he was appointed Public Astronomer at the Royal Observatory Greenwich.
The International Pulsar Timing Array (IPTA) is a multi-institutional, multi-telescope collaboration comprising the European Pulsar Timing Array (EPTA), the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav), the Parkes Pulsar Timing Array (PPTA) in Australia, and the Indian Pulsar Timing Array Project (InPTA). The goal of the IPTA is to detect ultra-low-frequency gravitational waves, such as from mergers of supermassive black holes, using an array of approximately 30 pulsars. This goal is shared by each of the participating institutions, but they have all recognized that their goal will be achieved more quickly by combining their respective efforts and resources.
Ian Morison FRAS is an astronomer and astrophysicist who served as the 35th Gresham Professor of Astronomy.
The Jodcast is a bimonthly podcast created by astronomers at Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics (JBCA), University of Manchester in Manchester, England. It debuted in January 2006, aiming to inspire and inform the public about astronomy and related sciences, to excite young people with the latest astronomy research results, to motivate students to pursue careers in science, and to dispel stereotypes of scientists as incomprehensible and unapproachable.
Richard John Davis, OBE, FRAS was a radio astronomer for the Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics at the University of Manchester.
FRB 20180916B, is a repeating Fast radio burst (FRB) discovered in 2018 by astronomers at the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) Telescope. According to a study published in the 9 January 2020 issue of the journal Nature, CHIME astronomers, in cooperation with the radio telescopes at European VLBI Network (VLBI) and the optical telescope Gemini North on Mauna Kea, Hawaii, were able to pinpoint the source of FRB 180916 to a location within a Milky Way-like galaxy named SDSS J015800.28+654253.0. This places the source at redshift 0.0337, approximately 457 million light-years from the Solar System.
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