Jodrell Bank
The 76m Lovell Telescope at Jodrell Bank Observatory
The Jodrell Bank Observatory is located near Macclesfield, Cheshire in the north west of England. The observatory is part of the University of Manchester and has played an important role in the research of quasars and pulsars. In 1979, scientists of Jodrell Bank announced the first detection of a gravitational lens; which confirmed one of Einstein's theories.
The observatory was established in 1945 by Dr. Bernard Lovell, who wanted to investigate cosmic rays after his work on radar in World War II. One of the telescopes of the observatory honours his name.
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The first radio telescope was built in 1947, but the famous "Mark I" telescope, at the time the largest steerable dish radio telescope in the world, 76.2 m (250 ft) in diameter, was constructed in the mid 1950s, becoming operational in the summer of 1957, just in time for the launch of Sputnik 1, the world's first artificial satellite. Jodrell Bank was the only installation in the world able to track Sputnik's booster rocket by radar, and the fame and income this brought in enabled the considerable construction debts to be paid off.
In February 1966, Jodrell Bank tracked the USSR unmanned moon lander Luna 9 and listened in on its facsimile transmission of photographs from the moon's surface. The photos were sent to the British press and published before the Soviets themselves had made the photos public.
The Mark I telescope has been updated twice, to allow greater sensitivity and make structural repairs, in 1970-71 and 2001-2003. In 1987, on its 30th anniversary, the telescope was renamed The Lovell Telescope in Sir Bernard's honour. A second radio telescope, the Mark II, was built at Jodrell Bank in 1964, with a diameter of approximately 25 metres (it's parabolic, not circular), while a third telescope, the Mark III, located some 20 miles away near Nantwich is part of the Jodrell Bank Observatory.
Jodrell Bank Observatory is also the base of the Multi-Element Radio Linked Interferometer Network, a National Facility run by the University of Manchester on behalf of PPARC.
The much-visited site was planted as an arboretum by Sir Bernard. Jodrell Bank Arboretum houses the UK's national collections of Malus and Sorbus species and the Heather Society's Calluna collection, on 35 acres.
General information
Statistics of the Lovell Telescope
Location:
Latitude 53 deg 14 min 13.2 s north
Longitude 2 deg 18 min 25.74 s west
Mass of telescope: 3200 t
Mass of bowl: 1500 t
Diameter of bowl: 76.2 m
Surface area of bowl: 5270 m²
Collecting area of bowl: 4560 m²
Height of elevation axis: 50.5 m
Maximum height above ground: 89.0 m
Radius of wheel girders: 38.5 m
Outer diameter of railway track: 107.5 m
Amount of paint for 3 coats of the bowl: 5200 L
Related topics
External links