Founded in 1960, this research facility is Canada's largest radio astronomy observatory. Built at a radio quiet site in the Okanagan Valley in south central British Columbia, it presently employs three different instruments - a 26-metre fully steerable dish, a seven-antenna
and a solar radio flux monitor. The facility is operated by the National Research Council of Canada’s Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics.
The first telescope at the facility was the 26-metre dish, which was put into operation June 21, 1960 at the official opening of the facility. Its primary purpose was the study of hydrogen in the universe.
John Galt, the first scientist to man the observatory on its opening, had been responsible for construction of the 26 metre telescope. He remained at the observatory until, and even after, his retirement, a pioneer in the field of
. Shortly after Galt's death in 2012 the 26 metre telescope was renamed
John Alexander Galt
(1925–2012)
by Sean Dougherty and Tom Landecker
The Person:
John Galt, one of the pioneers of Very Long Baseline Interferometry, died on Boxing Day morning, December 26, 2012. John was the first employee of the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory (DRAO) in 1959, its Director from 1963 until 1980, and, with his many novel experiments on the 26-m Telescope across a number of fields of astrophysics, helped establish the importance of radio astronomy as a scientific endeavor in Canada and raised the international profile of DRAO.
John developed a passion for all things technical and scientific in his early years. Following service in the Royal Canadian Navy Volunteer Reserve during the latter part of World War II, and a BA at University of Toronto, John spent time in the Canadian arctic, working for the Dominion Observatory in Resolute Bay on studies of the Earth’s magnetic field, before heading back to Toronto to work on both his MA and PhD in the Physics Department. He became an expert in analyzing the properties of atoms through laboratory spectroscopy, an endeavour closely related to astronomy. During this period he went out to British Columbia to work at the Dominion Astrophysical Observatory (DAO) in Victoria, to build an early optical photometer for the Plaskett Telescope, and he participated in observations of the 1954 Total Eclipse from northern Ontario.
In 1957 John was hired by the Dominion Astronomer, C. S. Beales, as the first employee of the fledgling DRAO to be located in the White Lake basin near Penticton, British Columbia. The site for DRAO had recently been identified following a series of site tests across North America and by Jack Locke of the Dominion Observatory and Ed Argyle of the Dominion Astrophysical Observatory. Not knowing much about radio exploration of the Universe, John was immediately posted to Jodrell Bank in the UK, then the leading radio astronomy institute in the world, to gain experience in the rapidly developing field. Two years later he joined Jack Locke in the old post office building in Penticton to start the challenging task of establishing the observatory.
The summer of 1959 was a very exciting and busy time at DRAO – John was responsible for construction of the 84 foot telescope, now known as the 26-m telescope, and its control building with offices. Jack Locke noted that “the telescope was erected, the receiving equipment delivered – to be immediately modified by John Galt”. This spirit of technical innovation was a hallmark of John’s work.
There is little doubt that the most influential experiment in the earliest years of the observatory was the first trans-continental Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) observations, made in collaboration with NRC, the University of Toronto, and Queen’s University using the 26m with the Algonquin Radio Observatory (Broten et al. 1967, Science 156, 1592). The scientific goal was to establish the size of the newly discovered quasars, one of the hottest topics in astrophysics in the 1960s. Today, these types of observations are made relatively easily at a number of facilities around the world, but in 1967 this was a remarkable tour-de-force that required a tremendous level of expertise, resourcefulness and determination. This pioneering observation helped establish the international reputation of DRAO and was recognized through the award of the Rumford Medal by the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1971. In 2010 the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers also recognized this work with the dedication of an IEEE Milestone award presented in September of 2010. It was most fitting that John was able to participate in the dedication ceremony of the plaque attached to the 26-m Telescope
From the American Astronomical Society