MOST interesting

[AstralTraveller (David)]

We made the ANZAC holiday into a long weekend and went camping near Braidwood. Heading home on Sunday we happened to pass what used to be called the Molonglo Cross but is now called the Molonglo Observatory Synthesis Telescope (MOST). It is now a test bed for technology for the SKA. I've known about this scope for decades but had never seen it, so I had to grab some piccies. More info here

[BC]

Hi David,

Nice close-up pics; you seem to have really gotten in there. I'm rather used to the view because I can see it out my window (from a surrounding hill top). It is an interesting but little known set-up (or maybe plenty of folk know of it but few talk about it). Thanks for showing it to the group.

Bruce

[Ric]

Hi David, I think sometimes we forget it is there.

My wife and I rode past it on the bike last weekend when we buying some fresh chestnuts from one of the farms out that way.

[IanT]

Hi
Interesting post. Many people don't know about the pioneering work of Grote Reber. He was the worlds first radio astronomer and after pioneering the field in the USA he migrated to Tasmania in 1954 where he set up a facility with the University of Tasmania. In the 1960's he built a 1km2 array on his property near Bothwell on the lower Central Plateau north of Hobart. I remember seeing the posts and wires of his construction in the 1980's but never took a photograph. The attached image from 1975 is taken from the open access Tasmanian State Goverment collection. I think that until quite recently the Bothwell array was the largest (not the most powerful) radio telescope array in the world. Quite a wonder. Much of his equipment, including his radio-shack, is on display at the Mt Pleasant Observatory at Cambridge (near Hobart Airport). Whatever is left at Bothwell should be nominated as a historically significant site in my opinion.
Ian