Molonglo Radio Observatory

The University of Sydney’s Molonglo Radio Observatory is located about 3-4 hours south of Sydney. It is being used to prototype some of the technologies in the proposed Square Kilometer Array.

I visited the site to see whether the School of Electrical and Information Engineering, could strength its links with Molonglo. In the past, there was close collaboration with the School of Physics on radio astronomy.

The telescope consists of two arms, each about a kilometer in length and a cylindrical paraboloid in shape.

There is also a junior version.

Under the antennas are the amplifiers and ADCs.

Lots of equipment inside the Observatory.

This is the manager, Duncan Campbell-Wilson. He has a pet tiger snake but I didn’t see it on my visit - maybe next time. Unfortunately, I didn’t take a photo of his colleague, Darshan Thakkar who is doing most of the FPGA design work.

On my return trip, I met up with a friend I hadn’t seen for about 20 years, fishing guru, Steve Samuels. We fishined Googong Dam and caught a few redfin, but nothing to write about.

Slept the night in my car around Pejar Dam. It was a new moon and being way away from the city, I had a magnificent view of the stars.

Morning fog.