| Description: | On the beautiful moor near Dwingeloo, in ASTRON's own backyard, stands the famous 25 meter Dwingeloo radio telescope. Now well over 50 years old it was once the biggest steerable radio telescope in the world, but became almost neglected in the last decade: eclipsed by newer and better instruments such as the WSRT, as these things go. A group of radio amateurs and amateur astronomers came together in 2005 who all shared a vision: to preserve, restore and bring back to service this historical 25m telescope, and to make it available to amateurs and schools to stimulate the interest in science and technology. With the generous support from ASTRON and VERON (the Dutch amateur radio society) they created the CAMRAS foundation in early 2007, a volunteer organization for the preservation of the telescope, and went to work. Thanks to the huge effort of a large number of volunteers, the telescope is now back in use again.
Today's colloquium will address what has happened in ASTRON's backyard in the past years, and is still happening. We will discuss the work in getting the dish back to work, what still needs to be done, and present some of the astronomical observations that are currently being carried out.
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