Astronomy:Paul Wild Observatory
The Paul Wild Observatory, also known as the Narrabri Observatory and Culgoora Observatory,[1] is an astronomical research facility located about 24 km west of Narrabri, New South Wales, Australia.[2] It is the home of the Australia Telescope Compact Array, and the Culgoora Solar Observatory.
The site itself and the Australia Telescope Compact Array are run by Australia's science agency, the CSIRO.[1] The current Solar Observatory is run by the Space Weather Services section of Australia's Bureau of Meteorology.[3][4]
The site is named in honour of Australian radio astronomer Paul Wild, who headed the team that built the instrument that the site was established for – the Culgoora Radioheliograph, the world's first radioheliograph[5] – which ran from 1967 to 1984.[6]
The Australia Telescope Compact Array began operating at the site in 1988.[7]
Current facilities
- The Australia Telescope Compact Array – a six-dish radio telescope interferometer[8]
- The Ionospheric Prediction Service (Space Weather Services) Culgoora Solar Observatory[9][4]
- A node of the Birmingham Solar Oscillations Network (BiSON)[10]
- An element of the Magnetic Data Acquisition System (MAGDAS) global magnetometer array[11][12]
-
Four antenna dishes of the Compact Array. -
Dishes of the Compact Array, showing track. -
A compact arrangement of dishes, at the north spur junction. -
East-west track of Array, before construction of north spur. 6th dish in far distance.
Past facilities
- The Culgoora Radioheliograph[1][13][14]
- The CSIRO Culgoora Solar Observatory
- The Sydney University Stellar Interferometer (SUSI)[15][16]
-
An Antenna of Culgoora Radioheliograph, 1970s -
7 of the 96 Antennae of Radioheliograph, c.1968
In the media
The children's/teen's television adventure series Sky Trackers was filmed at the site in 1993,[17] with the antenna dishes of the Australia Telescope Compact Array being prominently featured.
Other sites nearby
In addition to the Paul Wild Observatory, there is a history of astronomical research at other sites in the Narrabri area. The Narrabri Stellar Intensity Interferometer (NSII), the predecessor of SUSI, was located about 10 km north of Narrabri.[18]
At a site south of Narrabri, near the Bohena Creek, Durham University ran gamma ray telescopes[19] from 1986 to 2000.[20] The Bohena Creek site had previously been used for Sydney University's Giant Air Shower Recorder (SUGAR) for the detection of cosmic rays.[19]
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 "Visitors Guide to the Narrabri Observatory" (in en). 2019-08-30. https://www.narrabri.atnf.csiro.au/observing/visitors/.
- ↑ "Narrabri, Paul Wild Observatory". https://www.csiro.au/en/Locations/NSW/Narrabri.
- ↑ "About SWS" (in en). https://www.sws.bom.gov.au/About_SWS.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 "Culgoora Observatory" (in en). https://www.sws.bom.gov.au/Solar/2/1.
- ↑ Stewart, Ronald; Wendt, Harry; Orchiston, Wayne; Slee, Bruce (2011). "A Retrospective View of Australian Solar Radio Astronomy 1945-1960". in Orchiston, Wayne. Highlighting the History of Astronomy in the Asia-Pacific. Springer. pp. 589. ISBN 978-1-4419-8160-8.
- ↑ "Radio astronomy – observing explosions on the sun" (in en-AU). 2013-04-18. https://csiropedia.csiro.au/radio-astronomy-observing-explosions-on-the-sun/.
- ↑ CSIRO. "Australia Telescope Compact Array" (in en). https://www.csiro.au/en/about/facilities-collections/atnf/australia-telescope-compact-array.
- ↑ "Australia Telescope Compact Array". 8 July 2019. https://www.narrabri.atnf.csiro.au/.
- ↑ "Travel to Narrabri". https://www.narrabri.atnf.csiro.au/observing/users_guide/html_old_20090512/Travel_Narrabri.html.
- ↑ "Australian novelist writes about life at University of Birmingham's solar observatories". https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/schools/physics/news/2019/australian-novelist-writes-about-life-at-birmingham-solar-observatories.aspx.
- ↑ "Information for the Public" (in en). 2020-07-31. https://www.narrabri.atnf.csiro.au/public/.
- ↑ Yomoto, Kiyohumi (November 2005). "MAGDAS_Project". http://www.serc.kyushu-u.ac.jp/magdas/MAGDAS_Project.htm.
- ↑ Labrum, N. R. (25 August 1972). "The Culgoora Solar Radio Observatory". Solar Physics 27 (2): 496–504. doi:10.1007/BF00153122. Bibcode: 1972SoPh...27..496L. http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1972SoPh...27..496L.
- ↑ "Australia Telescope Compact Array" (in en-AU). 2014-09-05. https://csiropedia.csiro.au/australia-telescope-compact-array/.
- ↑ The SUSI (Sydney University Stellar Interferometer), Narrabri,... | Download Scientific Diagram
- ↑ Watson, Fred; Couch, Warrick (December 2017). "Astronomy in Australia". The Messenger (European Southern Observatory) (170): 4. https://www.eso.org/sci/publications/messenger/archive/no.170-dec17/messenger-no170.pdf. "While SUSI achieved an excellent track record in high-resolution optical astronomy, it eventually closed in the face of competition from ESO’s Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI) and other facilities."
- ↑ Wallace, Alex (August 1993). "CSIRO - sky tracking across the universe and our television screens". CoResearch - CSIRO's Staff Newsletter (354): 8. https://csiropedia.csiro.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/coresearch_1993.pdf.
- ↑ Davis, John; Lovell, Bernard (2003). "Robert Hanbury Brown 1916-2002". Historical Records of Australian Science 14: 4. https://www.science.org.au/fellowship/fellows/biographical-memoirs/robert-hanbury-brown-1916-2002.
- ↑ 19.0 19.1 Mark R, Dickinson (October 1997). "Chapter 3: The University of Durham Atmospheric Cerenkov Telescopes". Very high energy gamma ray observations of southern hemisphere blazars (Ph.D. thesis). Durham University. p. 41.
- ↑ "Gamma-Ray Astronomy Group | History | Australia". https://www.dur.ac.uk/cfai/vhegammaraygroup/grouphistory/australia/.
External links
- Narrabri Observatory Public Information (CSIRO)
- Australia Telescope Compact Array - Fast Facts (CSIRO)
- Space Weather Services (IPS) Culgoora Solar Observatory (Australian Bureau of Meteorology)
- Birmingham Solar Oscillations Network (University of Birmingham)
- MAGDAS (Kyushu University)
- Paul Wild (1923-2008) (CSIROpedia)
- "A New Look at the Sun", a CSIRO film on the Culgoora Radioheliograph (CSIROpedia)
- "The Sun – Our Nearest Star", a CSIRO film on the CSIRO Culgoora Solar Observatory (CSIROpedia)
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