Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory

The Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory (MRAO) is located near Cambridge, UK and is home to a number of the largest and most advanced aperture synthesis radio telescopes in the world, including the One-Mile Telescope, 5-km Ryle Telescope, and the Arcminute Microkelvin Imager. It was founded by the University of Cambridge and is an institute of the Cambridge University Astronomy Department.

Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory
Named afterMullard 
LocationUnited Kingdom
Coordinates52°10′03″N 0°01′57″E
Telescopes4C Array
Arcminute Microkelvin Imager
Cambridge Low Frequency Synthesis Telescope
Cambridge Optical Aperture Synthesis Telescope
Half-Mile Telescope
Interplanetary Scintillation Array
One-Mile Telescope
Ryle Telescope 
Location of Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory
Related media on Wikimedia Commons
One antenna of the One-Mile Telescope at the observatory

History

Radio interferometry started in the mid-1940s on the outskirts of Cambridge, but with funding from the Science Research Council and a corporate donation of £100,000 from Mullard Limited, a leading commercial manufacturer of thermionic valves.

Construction of the Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory commenced at Lords Bridge,[1] a few kilometres to the west of Cambridge.

The observatory was founded under Martin Ryle of the Radio-Astronomy Group of the Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge and was opened by Sir Edward Victor Appleton on 25 July 1957. This group is now known as the Cavendish Astrophysics Group.

Location

The site is located a few miles south-west of Cambridge University at Lords Bridge Station in Greater Cambridgeshire on a former ordnance storage facility, next to the now-disused Oxford-Cambridge Varsity railway line.

A portion of the track bed of the old line, running nearly east-west for several miles, was used to form the main part of the "5km" radio-telescope and the Cambridge Low Frequency Synthesis Telescope.

Telescopes

TelescopeYear builtStatus
Arcminute Microkelvin Imager Large Array2007Active
Arcminute Microkelvin Imager Small Array2004Active
Very Small Array (moved to Tenerife in 1999)1998Active
Cosmic Anisotropy Telescope made first high-resolution maps of Cosmic Microwave Background fluctuations1995Decommissioned
Cambridge Optical Aperture Synthesis Telescope (COAST) first aperture synthesis at optical wavelengths1993Operated on clear nights
One receiver from the e-MERLIN array1990Active
Cambridge Low Frequency Synthesis Telescope (CLFST)1980Decommissioned
Ryle Telescope (formerly 5-Kilometre Telescope)1971Decommissioned
(repurposed for AMI LA in 2006)
Half-Mile Telescope1968Decommissioned
Interplanetary Scintillation Array discovered first pulsar1967Decommissioned
One-Mile Telescope1964Decommissioned
4C Array, first telescope at the Cambridge's new observatory, used to make the 4C catalogue1958Decommissioned

The following photographs (except for the last 2 items) were taken in June 2014:

References

Notes

Sources

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