Feedback from LOFAR Talk at Winchester Science Festival

We received some lovely feedback about Dr. Anna Scaife's talk on LOFAR from the Winchester Science Festival which I wanted to share.

"I’d like to say a huge thank you to Dr. Anna Scaife for her talk about LOFAR at the Winchester Science Festival. It was really fantastic !"

"The whole weekend was a triumph for the organisers and being able to hear talks from so many scientists about their work was simply joyful."

"LOFAR is of particular interest to me [] and it was great to have my question about the arrangement of the low band antennas answered with technical detail."

We were also sent these images of Anna in full flow of her talk. Image credits: Dave Hughes, President of the Hampshire Skeptics Society.

Learn about LOFAR at the Winchester Science Festival

The inaugural Winchester Science Festival is taking place over the weekend of 20th-22nd July 2012. This event will be celebrating the best of Hampshire and World Science and feautures some of the best science communicators in the UK.

The Sunday programme includes a lecture at 2pm on "Exploring the low-frequency Universe with LOFAR", given by Dr Anna Sciafe from Southampton University.



Talk topic: The LOFAR radio telescope is currently the largest radio telescope network in the world. And the westernmost station of this vast array is located in Hampshire, a mere 10 miles from Winchester. Please join Dr Scaife for a fascinating journey into deepest space and deepest Hampshire as she discusses the truly amazing facilities we have on our very doorstep. 


 Tickets for the event are on sale at the Winchester Discovery Centre, costing £3. 

LOFAR "geeks" talk at Intech

By popular demand following the Intech Space Lecture on LOFAR last November, Derek Mckay-Bukoski will give a second talk at Intech on LOFAR focusing  on the technical aspects of the project.

Thursday 1st March 2012, 7.30pm.

LOFAR to be subject of an RAS Public Lecture

LOFAR is to be the subject of an upcoming Public Lectures hosted by the Royal Astronomical Society, on 10th January 2012.

The talk, LOFAR: A Radio Telescope the Size of Northern Europe will be given by LOFAR-UK and Transients Key Project member Dr. Edward Daws from the University of Sheffield.

RAS Pubic Lectures are 45-minute lunchtime talks for non-specialists. Members of the public can listen to leading scientists talk about their work.

Place: Lecture Theatre, Royal Astronomical Society, Burlington House, Piccadilly, London.

Time: 1pm, second Tuesday of the month.

'Friends of the RAS' are encouraged to reserve a seat, subject to availability, by email (to friends@ras.org.uk ) or letter up until 10am on the day of the lecture. Seats, in the reserved area of the lecture theatre, will be kept until 1255 (when they will be released). Simply turn up before 1255 – but please do sit in the reserved, central, rows!

Seats cannot be guaranteed for ‘Friends’ who do not reserve them. However, subject to availability, they will be admitted into the non-reserved seating area or the Council Room (where the lecture will be relayed on a plasma screen). To improve your chance of a seat in the lecture theatre you should arrive before 1245.

After 1245 ‘non-Friends’ will be admitted, subject to availability, to the  non-reserved seating area or the Council Room. Before 1245 ‘non-Friends’ will be held in a queue outside the building. Please note advance seat reservation is restricted to 'Friends'.

Summaries of (some) previous lectures can be read on the 'Friends of the RAS' web site

For further information call 020 7734 3307 / 4582

Hear about LOFAR from the UK Station Manager

You can have the chance to hear all about LOFAR, and the installation and running of the UK LOFAR station in Chilbolton in person soon. Our LOFAR-UK station manager, Derek McKay-Bukowski will speak about

"Digital Static: Hampshire's new world-class radio telescope" on 9th November this year as part of the Intech Science Centre's Space Lecture Series. Book early to avoid disappointment.

Studying Black Holes with LOFAR at the IoP

Another LOFAR talk for NSEW next week:

IoP talk: Studying Black Holes, Pulsars and the Explosive Universe with The Low Frequency Array (LOFAR)

Wednesday 16th March 2011. 7-8pm. LTM University of Surrey. 

Open to the public, admission free

by Martin Bell (Southampton PhD Student who helped to build LOFAR-UK)

The Low Frequency Array (LOFAR) is Europe's newest and most sophisticated radio telescope. It is also one of Europe's largest radio telescopes; it consists of a network of small radio telescopes – or 'ears' - spread out across Europe, which are connected together via the internet. When connected together this network forms a European size radio telescope and is the largest on Earth. The UK has just completed its contribution to the European LOFAR project with the construction of the LOFAR Chilbolton telescope (30 minutes North of Southampton). Using this network of telescopes we can 'listen in' on the most explosive and energetic events in the Universe. In this talk we will find out how the LOFAR radio telescope works; how we can use it to study Black Holes and Pulsars; and also what the future holds for radio astronomy.  

LOFAR UK is supported by SEPnet.

More details.

Tuning into the Universe in Portsmouth

As part of National Science and Engineering Week, (11-20th March 2011) there are several LOFAR related talks happening next week. For example:

Tuning into the Universe

Wednesday 16 March 2011, 6.00-7.00 pm, Portland Building, Portland Street, Portsmouth PO1 3AH

A public lecture by Dr David Bacon, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation, University of Portsmouth. Billions of light years away, galaxies have given out radio waves that speed across the Universe. Light now, some of them have reached a humble field a few miles outside Winchester, where they are being received by some of the antennae of the new LOw Frequency ARray (LOFAR). This is an astonishing Europe-wide radio telescope, which will be used to try to make important discoveries about galaxies and the Universe as a whole. In this talk, I will describe LOFAR and the attempts we are making to use it to probe the furthest reaches of the Universe. David Bacon is a research fellow at the Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation, Portsmouth University. He is co-ordinator for Cosmology in the Surveys Key Science Project with LOFAR.

AUDIENCE: General public and school groups are welcome to this free event, book through events@port.ac.uk

More details.