LOFAR-UK Station Damaged by Storms

During the night of 2nd-3rd Jan 2012, gale force winds over the UK resulted in some damage to the LOFAR international station UK608, located at the Chilbolton Observatory near Winchester in Hampshire. Wind speeds at the site exceed 60 mph (97 km/h) accompanied by heavy rain, as a major low pressure system began to pass over the UK. 

Image of the UK storm early in the morning of Jan 3rd 2012 from NASA's Aqua Satellite (via @metofficestorms)

Chilbolton staff working in the main building (about 1 mile from the array) noticed a dislodged HBA (high band antenna) cover on the morning of Jan 3rd 2012. A HBA tile is made up of 16 antennas held in place by white polystyrene cells all covered by a thick black weather proof cover, making a dislodged cover dramatically visible from a distance. 

An image of an HBA with part of the cover removed for testing. This reveals some of the lids, plus one antenna "cell" with the lid removed. You can also see more of the structure of HBAs in our video tour of Chilbolton.

Fortunately only one of the HBA tiles lost its cover, but 10 of the antenna "cells" within this tile lost their lids exposing the delicate antenna parts to heavy rain and damaging some of the internal structure. Debris was also blown all over the fields around UK608.

Unfortunately the LBA (low band antenna) array fared much worse. In total thirteen of the 96 antennas have been damaged or destroyed. Two of these antennas were completely blown away (including the metal grids), and eleven have been blow down. A further four antennas have been dislodged and may be partially damaged. 

Dame Jocelyn Bell-Burnell poses by an LBA during the UK608 opening. For more information on LBAs see our Chilbolton video tour.

Chilbolton staff members should be thanked by all of us for extraordinary effort during the ongoing severe weather yesterday (gale force winds and torrential rain) to mitigate further damage and collect debris.  They have been hard at work again today further securing the damaged array, as the UK is not out of the weather yet with moderate to strong winds forecast for the next 24 hours.

Work is also ongoing to assess the full extent of the damage, particularly to the LBA array, and make plans for the repairs. However the design of a LOFAR station is such that it can function at almost full efficiency with a few antennas down. So while the loss of a full HBA looks dramatic, it should only have a minor effect on the data quality in the high band. And the remaining (up to) 83 functioning LBAs (or 86% of the antennas) should also be able to make successful observations. 

LOFAR on the Map of GPU Computing.

Of possible interest to those involved in LOFAR is this map of the GPU (Graphical Processing Unit) computing usage for research. The LOFAR Epoch of Reionization Key Science project makes it onto the map in Groningen where GPUs are being used for signal and image processing of the data generated by LOFAR for this experiment.  

LOFAR Session at NAM 2012

The UK National Astronomy Meeting, to be held in Manchester in March 2012 will host a session on "LOFAR, the LOw Frequency ARray: Ongoing Developments and Early Results" preliminarily scheduled for 10am on Thursday 29th March 2012.

This session will be run by LOFAR scientists, Mario M. Bisi (Institute of Mathematics and Physics, Aberystwyth University, UK), Michael W. Wise (Astronomy Group, ASTRON (Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy), The Netherlands), Philip Best (School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Edinburgh, UK), Benjamin W. Stappers (The School of Physics and Astronomy, The University of Manchester, UK), Peter T. Gallagher (School of Physics, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland), and and Marcus Braggen (School of Engineering & Science, Jacobs University, Germany), the session has the following abstract:

"The LOw Frequency ARray (LOFAR) is a next-generation radio telescope which utilises thousands of stationary dipoles and tiles to observe celestial phenomena. This session is intended for the broader community to learn about the developments of LOFAR including updates on the status of the system and its current scientific capabilities, the early science results from all aspects of its applications and operation, as well as the upcoming opportunities for general "open skies" observing.With its dense core array and interferometric baselines of up to 1,000 km, LOFAR has the potential to achieve both unparalleled sensitivity (sub-mJy) and spatial resolution (sub-arcsecond) in this largely-unexplored low-frequency radio regime (~10 MHz to 250 MHz). Areas of science which can be explored with LOFAR include, but are not limited to, the Epoch of Re-ionisation (EoR), Pulsars, Transients, Cosmic Rays, Magnetism, deep Extra-Galactic Surveys, and also studies of the Sun, the Solar Atmosphere/Solar Wind, Space Weather, and the Earth's Ionosphere. In summary, the session is designed for showcasing LOFAR's scientific potential and progress to date. The session should include a LOFAR overview and specifics of LOFAR commissioning, current status, scientific and technical capabilities, and upcoming opportunities. We solicit contributions from any/all of the science areas that will be covered by the observational capabilities of LOFAR."

Spectacular view of the LOFAR Core

Check out this ASTRON image of the day from last month with spectacular aerial images of the LOFAR core region.

ASTRON image of the day from 12th Oct 2010. Please visit the link for more details. 

Everyone's Favourite Image of Chilbolton - reflected in the sunglasses

I constantly get asked for this image, so here's a post just about it. Chilbolton reflected in the sunglasses of ICG member Dr. Edd Edmondson as photographed by former ICG member Dr. Chiara Tonini.

Album of all of Chiara's pictures from the LBA installaton.

Tonight at Intech - LOFAR-UK Talk

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" this evening as part of the Intech Science Centre's Space Lecture Series.

Tickets are still available according to @INTECH_Science this morning.

LOFAR-UK Observes the Active Sun

Over the last few days, our Sun has been very active. Apart from the dedicated solar instruments monitoring this activity, we've also been able to observe it with the LOFAR radio telescope at Chilbolton. This facility comprises two fields of small antennas, that link together to perform as a powerful VHF radio telescope. Although it is also possible to link the LOFAR system in the UK with others across Europe, on the 28th September 2011, it was operating independently.

All Sky Image taken from LOFAR-UK, 28.09.11 (Credit: ASTRON/STFC)

At 16:10 UTC (= 5:10 pm local time), LOFAR Chilbolton was used to record an 'all-sky' image. Even before calibration and analysis, this image shows the bright objects in the radio sky. On the left hand side of the image there are, from top to bottom, Cassiopeia-A (a supernova remnant), Cygnus-A (a radio-galaxy) and the broader region which is the centre of our own Galaxy. However, to the right of the image, the Sun can be seen with extremely strong intensity, just before it set below the western horizon.

Menno Norden (ASTRON) and Derek McKay-Bukowski (RAL Space)

(Press release from RAL; KAIRA blog post.).