Lovell Telescope - Goostrey, Cheshire, England, UK. - Wikipedia Entries on Waymarking.com

"The Jodrell Bank Observatory is a British observatory that hosts a number of radio telescopes, and is part of the Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics at the University of Manchester. The observatory was established in 1945 by Sir Bernard Lovell, a radio astronomer at the University of Manchester who wanted to investigate cosmic rays after his work on radar during the Second World War. It has since played an important role in the research of meteors, quasars, pulsars, masers and gravitational lenses, and was heavily involved with the tracking of space probes at the start of the Space Age." Source: Wikipedia.

The Lovell telescope has been probing the depths of space since the summer of 1957. When it was built it was the largest telescope in the world. Even now, it remains one of the biggest and most powerful radio telescopes in the world, spending most of its time investigating cosmic phenomena which were undreamed of when it was conceived.

The telescope was designed to be fully steerable, so that it could be pointed to any part of the sky, right down to the horizon. There are only two fully steerable instruments larger than the Lovell Telescope, one in Germany (Effelsberg) and one in the United States (Green Bank).

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 (the Mark II, III, and IV) 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. (visit link) (visit link)

The most striking feature of the Lovell Telescope is the huge white bowl that can be seen for many miles around. The surface of the bowl is covered by 336 separate panels made of galvanised steel. They are painted white to reflect the heat of the sun and prevent them from warping. The bowl that is fashioned in the shape of a paraboloid, is the part of the telescope that gathers incoming radio waves. When the telescope is pointed towards a radio source in the sky, waves arriving from the source are intercepted by the bowl and reflected from the steel surface into the focus box mounted on top of the central tower. Here, at the focal point of the reflector, a small aerial picks up the waves and feeds them into a sensitive radio receiver.
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Date Logged Log User Rating   04/17/2024 dtrebilc visited it