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Space Science

UK Upgrades Radio Telescope Network 21

Posted by michael from the rabbit-ears dept.
armacc writes "From the BBC, work has started to use optical fibres to link up the giant radio telescope at Jodrell Bank with five others that are scattered across England. The telescopes comprise an array called Merlin that combines the data from each so they perform as a larger telescope. The telescopes are currently linked by microwaves but replacing them with optical fibres will be a revolution. Astronomers say the new project, e-Merlin, will be a great leap in Jodrell Bank's ability to look out into space."
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UK Upgrades Radio Telescope Network More

UK Upgrades Radio Telescope Network

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  • Jodi's listening (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 27, 2004 @12:26PM (#9268627)
    Jodi Foster's listening. She's going to hear something and build a giant flimsy gyroscope just so she can see dear ol Dad again.

  • But even with the upgrade (Score:5, Funny)

    by Eevee ( 535658 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @12:58PM (#9269061)
    They still won't notice the Vogon constructor fleet.

  • How far back... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Mick Ohrberg ( 744441 ) <mick,ohrberg&gmail,com> on Thursday May 27, 2004 @01:16PM (#9269273) Homepage Journal
    ...(or how far out) will they be able to spy with this puppy? I find it very interesting that we've come so far in the understanding of space, but we still have but scratched the surface. I would love to be able to hibernate for say 100 years, and then find out where we're at in technology, space flight and exploration...
    • ...(or how far out) will they be able to spy with this puppy?

      The ability to see great distances requires a large number of photons to be collected (to pick up faint signals and better separate signal from noise), which requires a large aperture area. They're not getting that here, so they won't be able to see much farther.

      What they _do_ get by using radio telescopes in tandem is a much larger effective aperture _diameter_, which lets them resolve finer details. What was once a blob or a point source of r
      • Development of technology is amazing. I read somewhere a long time ago about and engineer (I think) who said his mother (I think) was afraid that we [imdb.com] will [imdb.com] lose [imdb.com] control [imdb.com] over the computers in a near future. His reponse was that this was very unlikely to happen, but he did believe that we already have lost control over development and technology advancements. Along those lines - how long until we have a telescope that can see far out/back enough that we can "see" the events even closer to da big boom [wikipedia.org]?
        • Development of technology is amazing. I read somewhere a long time ago about and engineer (I think) who said his mother (I think) was afraid that we will lose control over the computers in a near future. His reponse was that this was very unlikely to happen, but he did believe that we already have lost control over development and technology advancements.

          Once we can reliably produce computers that are smarter than we are, it's only a matter of time before they dominate society's workings. This isn't neces
      • The ability to see great distances requires a large number of photons to be collected (to pick up faint signals and better separate signal from noise), which requires a large aperture area. They're not getting that here, so they won't be able to see much farther.

        If you RTFAs you should have noticed numerous references to the increased sensitivity of the new system in addition to the increased resolution. Only 0.5% of the data can be transferred from one telescope to another over the current microwave lin

        • If you RTFAs you should have noticed numerous references to the increased sensitivity of the new system in addition to the increased resolution.

          Unless they are linking thousands of telescopes, they are getting one *hell* of a lot larger boost in resolution than they are in light-gathering power by linking telescopes. S:N improves as the square root of light-gathering power, further reducing the resulting improvement in sensitivity.

          My point stands. Have a nice day.
          • Unless they are linking thousands of telescopes, they are getting one *hell* of a lot larger boost in resolution than they are in light-gathering power by linking telescopes.

            If this was themlinking the telescopes up for the first time you'd have a pont, but they already have the resolution, they already to interferrometry on the array. They aren't, so far as I can see, adding extra, further away, telescopes to the array which is what would be needed for better resolution.

          • Your point stands? It doesn't have a leg to stand on.

            Dr. Philip Diamond, Director of the MERLIN/VLBI National Facility added: "In combination with the newly resurfaced 76m Lovell telescope, the upgrade will give a 30-fold increase in sensitivity.

            In fact, there are no references to the resolution increasing. This stems from the fact that the telescopes are already being combined together for interferometry and so the system is already at its max resolution. As /. user R_caley correctly noted, "They are

            • Your point stands? It doesn't have a leg to stand on.

              Let me spell this out for you.

              A data transfer bottleneck makes interferometry suck just as much as it makes light-gathering suck, because in both cases you're throwing away most of your data.

              An effective increase in signal-gathering capability by the factor of 30 you quote gives an increase in ability to distinguish signal from noise of about 5.5 (signal goes up as N, noise goes up as root N). This is piddling compared to the fact that, being no longe
    • From the radio programme covering the story (it was part of the Leading Edge [bbc.co.uk] broadcast on Radio 4 thie evening), 10 billion (10^9) light years (and hence, obviously, 10 billion years).
  • ...(or how far out) will they be able to spy with this puppy? I find it very interesting that we've come so far in the understanding of space, but we still have but scratched the surface...

  • Use the things name Daggumit! (Score:3, Informative)

    by Syncdata ( 596941 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @03:44PM (#9271267) Journal
    Rather than call it a "network of telescopes" or an array, call it by it's name, an interferometer.
    The state of science journalism is bad enough, but this is /., and I don't come here to have topics spoonfed to me with fourth grade vocabulary. Even the linked article refers to this "network of telescopes" by it's proper name.
    I know I'm nitpicking, but we have words for things, and we should use them!

    And in an effort to be ontopic, hooray for the efficient utilization of existing resources!
    • Rather than call it a "network of telescopes" or an array, call it by it's name, an interferometer.

      Calling it a "phased antenna array" is perfectly valid. Just depends on whether you're talking to an astronomer or an electrical engineer :).

      Also, I believe you're overestimating the technical savvy of most slashdot readers. Know thy audience.
      • Phased antenna array is valid, but it's just as messy a term as inferometer to the layman, so why not just use the things name?

        And true, we are not all Edwin Hubble here on /., some people do come for the LOTR and stay for the science, but the title description of /. indicates the intended audience are of nerdish persuation. If a nerd can't go to a nerd website, and hear a nerdy term used in all it's nerdy precision, then where, I ask Where can that nerd go?

        It's like the nuggets you read about in forbes,
    • I beg to differ. The data could be used for interferometry, or they could be simply added together for increased sensitivity. Calling the network an interferometer ignores one if its possible uses.

    • Rather than call it a "network of telescopes" or an array, call it by it's name, an interferometer.

      IARA*, and "array", or "interferometric array", are the most commonly used terms, although interferometer is also used. The difference is that an interferometer can be just 2 antennas, while an array implies more than that, i.e. an interferometer that is an array is an array of interferometers. The more antennas, the better, because high quality imaging requires reasonable sampling of the area that the sim

  • This is a general trend (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Several observatories working together have been using glass fibre connections to make international interfermetric observations (Very Long Baseline Interferometry); this mode hase been dubbed eVLBI. This is still a pilot, but is working well. Have a look at. http://www.evlbi.org/evlbi/te017/te017.html

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