One-Mile Telescope, Radio interferometer at Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory, Cambridge, Great Britain
The One-Mile Telescope at Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory is a radio interferometer with three dish antennas, each 18 meters across. Two dishes stay in fixed positions while a third moves along an 800-meter track system to gather observations from different points.
Built in 1964, this instrument revolutionized radio astronomy by using aperture synthesis techniques to create clearer images of radio sources. The breakthrough methods developed here became foundational to the field and shaped how astronomers observed the cosmos for decades.
The name comes from the roughly 800-meter length of the observation track, which corresponds to about a mile. You can see how this layout allowed researchers to study the cosmos in new ways by combining signals from multiple positions.
The observatory allows you to see a working radio astronomy instrument in action and understand how modern observations of space work. Visitors benefit from learning a bit about how the movable antenna gathers data by shifting position, as this is key to how the system functions.
The movable dish was designed to make observations from over 2000 different positions along the track, an extraordinary capability for its time. This ability to measure precisely from many points led to the creation of the comprehensive 5C catalogue of radio sources in the sky.
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