Date: September 19, 2011
Title: New Uses for Old Radio Dishes
Podcasters: Colm Ryan and Niall Smith
Link: http://www.bco.ie
Description: How a science outreach centre in Ireland plans to convert a defunct 32 meter radio dish into a fully functioning radio telescope on a very limited budget.
Bios: Colm Ryan is a science and space enthusiast from Cork, Ireland. He is a founder member of Cork Skeptics, a local organisation dedicated to the promotion of science and critical thinking in the Cork area.
Niall Smith is a founder member of Blackrock Castle Observatory in Cork. He is presently the Head of Research at Cork Institute of Technology and chair of the Institute’s Research & Development Committee. Niall has a PhD in astrophysics from University College Dublin. He has maintained an active research group that develops new techniques to support research into surveys for extrasolar planets and surveys of quasars.
Sponsor: This episode of “365 Days Of Astronomy” has been brought to you anonymously and is dedicated to people who like to look up in the night sky and get goosebumps.
Transcript:
Hi! My name is Colm Ryan, an astronomy and science enthusiast based in Cork, Ireland.
Close to Midleton, a town near Ireland’s southern coast, stands a radio dish. It’s a large one. 32 metres diameter, to be exact. It’s pointing straight up and it’s silent. It hasn’t moved for more than ten years, when it was used by a telecoms company to send phone calls to North America. Within a decade, however, a trans-Atlantic fibre-optic cable replaced it. The dish was put out of commission, and since then it has been motionless – gently rusting away in the damp Irish climate.
Until now. There are signs that it is going to flicker back to life, this time as a radio telescope.
To understand what happened, we need to talk to Niall Smith. Niall is the Director of Research with Cork Institute of Technology: a local academic institution.
———
C: So Niall, what’s the background to the project?
N: Well, we’re in Blackrock Castle Observatory, in Cork, in Ireland. This is a science centre, and a working astronomical observatory, and it has been for about the last four years. The remit is to do two things here. One is research and the second thing is to excite young and old about science and engineering in society through the medium of astronomy. We are always looking out for new ways, new opportunities where we can make astronomy and space exciting for people; where we can make it accessible for people. That can be both school groups, or people indeed who come here to visit, or who look at what we do online.
N: We have been looking at ways of doing things with optical telescopes. We have an optical telescope here and we also have optical telescopes abroad and we can link into those; but we’ve been looking for other opportunities and one unexplored domain for us here is in the radio part of the spectrum.
C: So how did the radio dish come about?
N: The radio dish has been in existence since 1984. It’s a large dish, 32 meters across, which is roughly a hundred feet. It was originally used by a telecommunications company and it’s prime purpose was to bring transatlantic phone calls from Ireland to America via satellite. At the peak of it’s operation, it was able to handle 300 phone calls simultaneously, which today sounds like a ridiculously small number of phone calls. Nevertheless, that was the technology back in the 80’s.
N: Because of technological advances: the use of smaller dishes, for example and also the rise of broadband and fibre under the ocean linking the continental US to Europe, the 32 meter dish fell into disuse. Roughly for the last ten years, it hasn’t been doing anything. About a year ago a company wanted to use the site, upon which the 32 meter is located, to communicate with satellites. They have this site with a number of 9 meter dishes, and in the middle of all these 9 meter dishes is this honking great 32 meter dish that is not being used for anything.
C: So they just gave you it?
N: Pretty much, yes; well, to use it, anyway.
C: So, let me get this right. You were happy running an outreach center doing good local research and suddenly you find yourself in possession of a large 32 meter dish. What did you do?
N: Well, we realised that with a 32 meter radio dish, that there must be an application that you can use. Ireland is prone to cloudy weather, so we thought that, with a radio dish we can see through the clouds. We didn’t have a lot of money so we thought, how can we do something on a really tight budget? There’s a phrase “frugal innovation” which is used, increasingly now. It’s ways of thinking about using something that is already in existence, for a very small amount of extra money. We realised that if we put in somewhere between 5 and 10,000 euros (7000 – 14000 dollars) worth of equipment onto the back end of this telescope, we could bring the telescope back to life.
N: In this first phase, the telescope simply points upwards. It doesn’t move. We call it the “standing phase”. The sky rotates over it and as it does so, different parts of the galaxy are seen by the radio telescope and we can record the emissions from those parts of the galaxy. The next phase is to get the dish moving. Then we can point it at different objects in the sky. We can track them and we can monitor what they are doing from one minute to the next. We can either start to do some interesting research: we can look at stars that are exploding, we can look at galaxies with enormous jets and see how they vary. We can look at all sorts of interesting objects in our galaxy and beyond, once we can move the radio telescope. That allows us to introduce different research activities, but also activities from school groups who can, with help from us at Blackrock Castle Observatory, select objects and watch what they do. They can look at the radio emissions from them, and connect it to what’s going on in the curriculum. It can make the teaching of science in school, and indeed at third level, more exciting and interesting.
N: The possibilities for teaching science are huge, but also, Colm, I think it’s important to point out, we already have some artists who are interested in the data that we get from the telescope and interpreting that radio emission, from various parts of the universe, in art form: visually, or through the use of music or whatever. It will serve an enormous number of stakeholder. It’s people’s imagination that will limit what we can do with this amazing piece of kit.
C: You mentioned “frugal innovation”. Do you want to explain a little bit more about what that’s all about?
N: Frugal innovation is something that is relatively new. It’s very interesting. Essentially, it means you do something that’s creative or innovative. Underlying it, there isn’t a lot of investment of money. Whatever you do has to be frugal. An example is the 32 meter. Another example is if you have a number of telescopes, like we do, each of them operating separately. One of the things we are doing with them is to start to make them work together. This allows you to do something that is different to when you use the telescopes on their own. It doesn’t really cost you any money. All you do is you link the telescopes, which you already have, to the broadband, which you already have. It’s what you do with those, once you link them together, which is the new and exciting bit. That’s what’s innovative, but it’s also frugal.
C: It’s amazing what can be done, even on very limited budgets, to communicate the wonders of astronomy to the public. And, if people wish to find out more?
N: They can find us on the web, and the address is www.bco.ie – BCO for “Blackrock Castle Observatory”. We are also on Twitter and Facebook at “blackrockcastle”. We’d be delighted to hear thoughts, views, feedback.
C: Thanks Niall.
End of podcast:
365 Days of Astronomy
=====================
The 365 Days of Astronomy Podcast is produced by the Astrosphere New Media Association. Audio post-production by Preston Gibson. Bandwidth donated by libsyn.com and wizzard media. Web design by Clockwork Active Media Systems. You may reproduce and distribute this audio for non-commercial purposes. Please consider supporting the podcast with a few dollars (or Euros!). Visit us on the web at 365DaysOfAstronomy.org or email us at info@365DaysOfAstronomy.org. Until tomorrow…goodbye.