LOFAR-UK Video on the Jodcast

A Jodcast video released this weekend shows Jodcast presenters visiting the LOFAR-UK station in Chilbolton and interviews with several LOFAR-UK scientists helping out with the repairs following the big storm last January.

LOFAR on the Jodcast

You can listen to me on the May 2011 Extra Jodcast talking about LOFAR (among other things). I'm the first interview in the podcast.

LOFAR-UK Pencast about the LBA

A pencast explaining the LOFAR Low Band Antennas.

LOFAR LBA Pencast
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LOFAR-UK at the UK National Astronomy Meeting

Anyone who follows LOFAR (or me) on Twitter probably knows that LOFAR has been well represented at the UK National Astronomy Meeting (NAM) taking place in Llandudno, Wales this week. LOFAR-UK decided to run an exhibit stand to try to educate the UK astronomical community about LOFAR in general and the UK involvement in LOFAR specifically.

Below is the picture of the stand we put up, with 3 large LOFAR-UK banner posters and LOFAR-UK bookmarks (made by SEPnet, who also provided some pencils, postcards and post-it notes to give out), a computer playng a DVD of some of the different LOFAR-UK videos we have on YouTube, brochures describing LOFAR in general (kindly provided by ASTRON), a leaflet about the Chilbolton observatory (provided by STFC), LOFAR-UK pens and post-it notes designed by yours truly, plus printouts of two of the recent press releases (First Light Including Chilbolton Station, and the First Peer Reviewed Science Result from LOFAR) and some other pictures.

Here's a picture of all the give-aways. The pens were a definite hit (described as the best freebie at NAM), and we have just a handful left to giveaway tomorrow (the last day of the meeting).

We also took along a demo low band antenna (LBA) which I'm holding in the below picture. We have used this to illustrate the technique behind putting up the antenna several times at coffee and lunch breaks, and also to the team from the Astronomy Now YouTube Channel. 

 There has been some definite interest, and I have given interviews about LOFAR (and LOFAR-UK) for the Jodcast, The Naked Scientist, the Sky at Night vodcast and Astronomy Now YouTube channel. So stay tuned for those.

 Other LOFAR related events at NAM included a talk by Christian Vocks on observing the Sun with LOFAR (with some interesting information on the Potsdam LOFAR station), plus a plenary lecture on EISCAT-3D (a project using some similar technology to LOFAR).

All in all I think it's gone very well, and I want to say thanks to all the members of the LOFAR-UK community who have helped me to "man the stand" this week. They have included Emma Rigby, Melanie Gendre, Lyndsay Fletcher, Rob Beswick, Somak Raychaudhury, Paul O'Brien and Paul Alexander.

Video of Soundbite Interviews

At the opening on Monday I filmed short "soundbite" interviews with many of the scientists involved in LOFAR-UK. The resulting video is a nice summary of the excitement felt within the UK community (and wider) about our involvement in LOFAR.

Official LOFAR-UK Opening

Yesterday was a big day for LOFAR-UK. The station at Chilbolton was officially handed over (as per an earlier blog report) and was also officially opened by Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell in a ribbon cutting ceremony out in the field.


(Picture taken by James West, SEPnet)

This ribbon cutting was followed by real time observations of one of the brightest pulsars in the sky (thanks to Aris Karastergiou from Oxford Univ. who had worked very hard and set up some impressive computing to process the data to show us in real time). Jocelyn seemed very pleased to see the telescope worked, and was very excited particularly about it's potential to detect new transient radio emitters.


(Picture taken by James West, SEPnet)

After the Chilbolton event was a celebratory event held at the nearby Intech Science Centre. Rob Fender (LOFAR-UK PI, Southampton Uni), John Womersley (STFC), Mike Garrett (ASTRON) and Derek McKay-Bukoswki (Chilbolton Station Project Manager) all gave talks, and then Jenny Shipway (Intech Planetarium Manager) gave us a wonderful planetarium show specially adapted to include links to LOFAR science. I think I can speak for most astronomers in the room by saying that we don't get to see planetarium shows very often, and it was a wonderful reminder of the inspirational science behind why most of us got into this game in the first place.

Also we had cake.

(Picture taken by Bob Nichol, Portsmouth).

Well done to everyone involved.

Tour of Chilbolton LOFAR Station

Almost two weeks ago, Alejo and myself went up to Chilbolton to make a short video tour of the site explaining the three main components. We've now released the video on You Tube.



Hope you like it.

Local Coverage

We had some nice local coverage of the LBA build yesterday. I particularly like the Andover Sound (106.4 FM in Hampshire) as it features one of the (very small number of) antennas I helped to build yesterday: link.

You can now watch the ITV Meridian report which went out yesterday on YouTube.

Media Day at Chilbolton

Today was media day at our Chilbolton LOFAR day, and I'm still catching up! The press team did a wonderful job generating interest and we had visits today from local TV (ITV Meridian, BBC South), local radio (BBC Radio Solent and Radio Andover) as well as Sky at Night Magazine. As Rob mentioned in his post from today, BBC Horizon have also been filming this week, and Chris Lintott from Sky at Night is expected tomorrow to help with the final antennas.

Today I got to go along too and help build some antennas and be generally around for the press (was even interviewed on BBC Radio Solent). I wish I could spend more time up there, but at least since I can't do that I have more time to post things here!

Some pictures of media stuff happening:

BBC Radio Solent Van parked near the LBA installation.


Bob Nichol and me about to be interviewed live by the BBC Radio Solent reporter.


Portsmouth PhD student Hana Schumacher being interviewed for ITV Meridian.


Finally here's a collection of links to various coverage (in no particular order, and of varying levels of correctness!):

ITV Meridian (TV) link

ITN News (article): link

Sky and Telescope (video): link

Daily Mail (article): link

BBC Online News (article): link

Will Gater (blog): link

The Sun (article): link

The Telegraph (article): link

Hard Hat Colours

You might be wondering why there are so many different coloured hard hats in the pictures of the LBA build. I know I was when I saw the first pictures on Monday. Turns out the colours are used to indicate the role of the person wearing the hat. And here's the key:

Light Blue = Team leader (or 'Lieutenant')

Dark Blue = Team member (Oxford)

Red = Team member (Soton/Ports)

Yellow stripe (on any colour) = Coordinator / Quality Assurance

White = Media or Visitor

White with green/blue cross = First Aid

We won't be able to keep up with labelling all the different people in the pictures this week, but hopefully this key will give you some idea of who you're seeing.

More pictures from LBA Build

Yesterday the University of Portsmouth Media Crew visited Chilbolton to take some pictures and video of the LBA installation. You can view the pictures which are mostly (but not exclusively) following the LBA installation team lead by Prof. Bob Nichol (AKA LBA Lieutenant Bob Nichol) at this website. The video should appear on the University of Portsmouth website tomorrow.

Why have International Stations?

There's a nice item out online right now (see the Astronomy Now version) illustrating the benefit international stations like the one we're building at Chilbolton add to LOFAR. The article is describes the improvement in resolution seen between an image of a distant quasar taken by just the LOFAR core, and one taken using the core connected to two stations in Germany.

Here's the image.

Radio image of quasar 3C 196 at 4-10 metre wavelengths (30-80MHz frequency). Left: Data from the LOFAR stations in the Netherlands only. Right: Greater detail is revealed when the German stations are added to the array. Image: Olaf Wucknitz, Bonn University.

We're looking forward to seeing the first images taken including the Chilbolton station. But first we have to build it!

Final preparations for the LBA build week

Work has been in full swing at Chilbolton, preparing for the LBA build week next week. The grids and ground sheets have now been transported from their initial storage position near the main Chilbolton Observatory building over to the edge of the LBA field (about 1/2 mile away), ready for installation.

It is certainly a long time since they first arrived on the back of a Dutch lorry, all the way back in November 2009. In fact, their arrival was announced in one of the very first posts here.

And here is some never before seen footage taken of the arrival back in November, when some of us went to Chilbolton to witness the arrival. In the movie you'll see/hear Bob Nichol, myself (Karen Masters) and Owain Davies (formerly of STFC) discussing what all the bits are, Owain and Derek McKay checking all the expected parts have arrived, and then Owain, Bob and Alejo Martinez-Sansigre breaking the seal on the RF container to get a first look inside.


And finally some pictures showing how they have just been moved out to the LBA field.

The grids were first chained up by Mark Andrews (pictured) and his crew, ready to be lifted.


Then they are carefully driven across the field using the heavy digger (driven by John Murray). There were two loads of grids, each load weighs just over 1 ton.


After moving all the grids, the ground sheets are then moved over.


Two piles of grids and one pallet-load of ground sheets. All ready on the side of the LBA field in preparation for their installation.

Tracking the LBA Installation

Things are hotting up in Chilbolton - and I mean more than just the weather. The "army" of volunteer scientists, complete with fully trained "Lieutenants" and its very own "Field Marshall", descends next week to install the LBAs. You can expect lots of updates, including (we hope) some live tweeting from the installation. Of course Chilbolton is a good location for a LOFAR station partly because it has low levels of radio interference. This is good for a radio telescope, not good for mobile phone reception. The LOFAR station is also being built in a field some distance from the main Chilbolton Observatory building... but we'll do our best....

As a way to track the LBA installation we're planning daily updates of the number of antennas completed. Every day we will post a new version of the schematic shown below where completed antennas will be coloured in - using rainbow order to illustrate the time sequence. As you can see, at present there are three LBAs in the field - two done during "Lieutenant" training last week (shown in red) and one more which was put up today as a final check of the procedure (coloured in orange).



So that's 3 down, 93 to go...

Sardinia Radio Telescope

LOFAR isn't the only radio telescope under construction in Europe at the moment.

At curiously similar timing, the SRT (the 64m Sardinia Radio Telescope) is also in the midst of being built (in Sardinia, Italy). Images and videos are available here.

Of particular interest, the video from 22-May-2010 is a 36-hour time-lapse video of the lifting of the dish structure. As you can see, the SRT is a single dish radio telescope, while LOFAR of course is an array telescope. While both are radio telescopes, LOFAR is also designed to observe at MUCH lower frequencies than the SRT.

Here is a picture of the SRT taken from the INAF website.

Where is Chilbolton?

The LOFAR-UK station is being built at Chilbolton Observatory which is located on an old RAF field near the village of Chilbolton in rural Hampshire (not far from Winchester). The picture above is of the Chilbolton Post Office which I took on the morning of the LBA Test build last December.

Video of the LBA Test Installation

Now available on YouTube is a short video of the LOFAR-UK LBA Test Installation (as previously described on the blog).



Hopefully the weather will be a bit more pleasant for the full installation next month.

LOFAR-UK on Radio Solent

For your listening pleasure, you can download here (.WAV) or here (.MP3) the interview I did with BBC Radio Solent presenter Matt Treacy during the test installation of LOFAR Low Band Arrays at Chilbolton last month.

Photo of the team after construction:

LOFAR UK on BBC Radio Solent

An interview I recorded with BBC Radio Solent reporter Matt Treacy last week during the LOFAR LBA test installation at Chilbolton aired this morning on the local Hampshire radio. It will be available for the next 7 days on the BBC iPlayer at this location: iPlayer link (about 45 minutes into the show).

Four LBA Antennas Constructed as Test at Chilbolton

A team of LOFAR-UK scientists went to Chilbolton this Tuesday to try to build some LBAs (low band antennas) on site. In the end we put up four antennas in two teams of four. Here's the team behind one of the finished antennas (note for this test we did not use the ground sheets, nor are the antennas at the final LOFAR location - they are instead on the test range - much closer to the main buildings).


[from left to right: Gordon Brown (STFC); Hana Schumacher and Bob Nichol (Portsmouth); Griffin Foster, Sascha Schediwy and Alejo Martinez-Sansigre (Oxford); Martin Bell (Southampton); Mike Willis (STFC); Anne Stanford (Portsmouth); Judith Croston (Southampton); Derek McKay (STFC); Me (Portsmouth); and Owain Davies (STFC)]

Here's a picture of all 4 antennas we built.



Here's one of the teams finishing off an antenna while I talk to a BBC Radio Solent reporter in the background (more in that soon hopefully).



We were able to connect up one of the antennas to check the signal - in effect getting "first light", at least from a single LOFAR antenna at the Chilbolton site. It was an exciting moment for us as you can see.



And here's what we were looking at!



(thanks to Judith Croston for most of the pictures I posted here today).