Paul Wild Observatory

Observatory

Location of Paul Wild Observatory

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The Paul Wild Observatory, also known as the Narrabri Observatory and Culgoora Observatory,^[1] is an astronomical research facility located about 24 km west of Narrabri, New South Wales, Australia.^[2] It is the home of the Australia Telescope Compact Array, and the Culgoora Solar Observatory.

The site itself and the Australia Telescope Compact Array are run by Australia's science agency, the CSIRO.^[1] The current Solar Observatory is run by the Space Weather Services section of Australia's Bureau of Meteorology.^[3]^[4]

The site is named in honour of Australian radio astronomer Paul Wild, who headed the team that built the instrument that the site was established for – the Culgoora Radioheliograph, the world's first radioheliograph^[5] – which ran from 1967 to 1984.^[6]

The Australia Telescope Compact Array began operating at the site in 1988.^[7]

Current facilities

The Australia Telescope Compact Array – a six-dish radio telescope interferometer^[8]
The Ionospheric Prediction Service (Space Weather Services) Culgoora Solar Observatory^[9]^[4]
A node of the Birmingham Solar Oscillations Network (BiSON)^[10]
An element of the Magnetic Data Acquisition System (MAGDAS) global magnetometer array^[11]^[12]

Four antenna dishes of the Compact Array.
Dishes of the Compact Array, showing track.
A compact arrangement of dishes, at the north spur junction.
East-west track of Array, before construction of north spur. 6th dish in far distance.

Past facilities

The Culgoora Radioheliograph^[1]^[13]^[14]
The CSIRO Culgoora Solar Observatory
The Sydney University Stellar Interferometer (SUSI)^[15]^[16]

An Antenna of Culgoora Radioheliograph, 1970s
7 of the 96 Antennae of Radioheliograph, c.1968

In the media

The children's/teen's television adventure series Sky Trackers was filmed at the site in 1993,^[17] with the antenna dishes of the Australia Telescope Compact Array being prominently featured.

Other sites nearby

In addition to the Paul Wild Observatory, there is a history of astronomical research at other sites in the Narrabri area. The Narrabri Stellar Intensity Interferometer (NSII), the predecessor of SUSI, was located about 10 km north of Narrabri.^[18]

At a site south of Narrabri, near the Bohena Creek, Durham University ran gamma ray telescopes^[19] from 1986 to 2000.^[20] The Bohena Creek site had previously been used for Sydney University's Giant Air Shower Recorder (SUGAR) for the detection of cosmic rays.^[19]

References

^ ^a ^b ^c "Visitors Guide to the Narrabri Observatory". CSIRO Australia Telescope National Facility. 30 August 2019. Retrieved 28 February 2021.
^ "Narrabri, Paul Wild Observatory". www.csiro.au.
^ "About SWS". Australian Government Bureau of Meteorology Space Weather Services. Retrieved 6 March 2021.
^ ^a ^b "Culgoora Observatory". Australian Government Bureau of Meteorology Space Weather Services. Retrieved 28 February 2021.
^ Stewart, Ronald; Wendt, Harry; Orchiston, Wayne; Slee, Bruce (2011). "A Retrospective View of Australian Solar Radio Astronomy 1945-1960". In Orchiston, Wayne (ed.). Highlighting the History of Astronomy in the Asia-Pacific. Springer. p. 589. ISBN 978-1-4419-8160-8.
^ "Radio astronomy – observing explosions on the sun". CSIROpedia. 18 April 2013. Retrieved 28 February 2021.
^ CSIRO. "Australia Telescope Compact Array". www.csiro.au. Retrieved 5 September 2021.
^ "Australia Telescope Compact Array". www.narrabri.atnf.csiro.au. 8 July 2019.
^ "Travel to Narrabri". www.narrabri.atnf.csiro.au.
^ "Australian novelist writes about life at University of Birmingham's solar observatories". www.birmingham.ac.uk.
^ "Information for the Public". www.narrabri.atnf.csiro.au. 31 July 2020. Retrieved 28 February 2021.
^ Yomoto, Kiyohumi (November 2005). "MAGDAS_Project". International Centre for Space Weather Science and Education Kyushu University. Archived from the original on 31 July 2007. Retrieved 4 March 2021.
^ Labrum, N. R. (25 August 1972). "The Culgoora Solar Radio Observatory". Solar Physics. 27 (2): 496–504. Bibcode:1972SoPh...27..496L. doi:10.1007/BF00153122. S2CID 122609617.
^ "Australia Telescope Compact Array". CSIROpedia. 5 September 2014. Retrieved 28 February 2021.
^ The SUSI (Sydney University Stellar Interferometer), Narrabri,... | Download Scientific Diagram
^ Watson, Fred; Couch, Warrick (December 2017). "Astronomy in Australia" (PDF). The Messenger (170). European Southern Observatory: 4. "While SUSI achieved an excellent track record in high-resolution optical astronomy, it eventually closed in the face of competition from ESO’s Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI) and other facilities."{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link)
^ Wallace, Alex (August 1993). "CSIRO - sky tracking across the universe and our television screens" (PDF). CoResearch - CSIRO's Staff Newsletter (354): 8.
^ Davis, John; Lovell, Bernard (2003). "Robert Hanbury Brown 1916-2002". Historical Records of Australian Science. 14: 4.
^ ^a ^b Mark R, Dickinson (October 1997). "Chapter 3: The University of Durham Atmospheric Cerenkov Telescopes". Very high energy gamma ray observations of southern hemisphere blazars (Ph.D. thesis). Durham University. p. 41.
^ "Gamma-Ray Astronomy Group | History | Australia". Durham University. Retrieved 1 March 2021.

External links

Narrabri Observatory Public Information (CSIRO)
Australia Telescope Compact Array - Fast Facts (CSIRO)
Space Weather Services (IPS) Culgoora Solar Observatory (Australian Bureau of Meteorology)
Birmingham Solar Oscillations Network (University of Birmingham)
MAGDAS (Kyushu University)
Paul Wild (1923-2008) (CSIROpedia)
"A New Look at the Sun", a CSIRO film on the Culgoora Radioheliograph (CSIROpedia)
"The Sun – Our Nearest Star", a CSIRO film on the CSIRO Culgoora Solar Observatory (CSIROpedia)