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26-07-2007
Grote Reber - ASTRON salutes an early pioneer of radio astronomy
| Submitter: | Michael Garrett |
| Description: | Almost 20 years before the completion of the Dwingeloo Telescope, Grote Reber, inspired by the discovery of radio emission coming from the centre of the Milky Way by Karl Jansky, built his own 31-ft paraboloid radio telescope in his own back yard in Illinois, USA. Reber was a radio amateur and built, designed and paid for the telescope himself, while working during the day for a local radio engineering firm. He worked independently from the established scientific community, but from 1937 until after the second world war, Reber was the world's only active radio astronomer and, in 1938, he used this telescope to make the first map of the radio emission from the Milky Way, also discovering other bright and discrete (galactic and extra-galactic) radio sources. His original maps are strikingly similar to the first all-sky maps recently produced by the LOFAR High Band Antennas. Reber realised the importance of mapping the sky at several different wavelengths, and thus became the first person to discover the typical non-blackbody (non-thermal) nature of cosmic radio emission. In the mid-1950's, Reber moved to Tasmania and began to extended his radio astronomy studies to even long wavelengths (down to a few MHz). He built a large dipole array in Bothwell with a collecting area of a Square Kilometre! Clearly ahead of his time, Grote was a respected as a determined and independent thinker - in addition to astronomy, he was interested in many different areas of science, including energy-efficient transport. Grote Reber died in 2002, and in rememberance of his life and contribution to radio astronomy, the executors of his will arranged for part of his ashes to be distributed to some of the major radio observatories around the world. Today (Thursday 26 July 2007), an small informal gathering will take place to mark the internment of Grote Reber's ashes at the Dwingeloo radio telescope. It's a honour for ASTRON to be involved in this initiative and to help promote the memory and achievements of a great radio astronomy pioneer. |
| Copyright: | ASTRON |
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