# 'Site M' - Massive Telescope Satellite Dishes ...



## UrbanX (Feb 26, 2012)

So Nelly and Skelton Key were fed up of me traipsing down to their patch in Essex, and demanded that I show them ‘Derelict Cambridge’. Well, due to land value there’s nothing here. I done my best tho and scraped together 5 sites. This being the last. 







I wouldn’t normally leave the name out,=, it’s a well know site, especially if you’re local. There just seems to be an outrageous media frenzy going on at the mo, and I just don’t fancy seeing ridiculous “Urban Explorers raid on observatory headlines. The site is still in use, however these are now unused, or derelict. 






So visited one lovely sunny afternoon with Nelly, Skeleton Key, Mr & Mrs Trogladyte, Cheiftan, and a guy with a video camera. 







These Telescopes are 60-ft-diameter parabolic reflectors operating simultaneously at 1407 MHz and 408 MHz) designed to perform aperture synthesis interferometry. So there. And was completed around 1964. 
There’s a few of them on rails, the idea being that even a few meters apart they could still ‘triangulate’ results from far away planets. 











In 1971, Sir Martin Ryle described why, in the late 1950s, radio astronomers decided on the construction of this telescope: "Our object was twofold. First we wanted to extend the range of our observations far back in time to the earliest days of the Universe, and this required a large increase in both sensitivity and resolution. With greater resolution we hoped that we might be able to draw radio maps of individual radio sources with sufficient detail to give some indication of the physical processes which brought them into being."






The telescope was made up of three 120 ton dishes, each of which is 18 m in diameter. Two of the dishes are fixed, while the third can be moved along an 800 m long (half mile) rail track, at speeds of up to 6.4 km/h. There were 60 different stations along the track, which is straight to within 0.9 cm, and whose far end was raised by 5 cm to allow for the curvature of the Earth over its length. The observing frequencies were usually 408 MHz (75 cm; the resolution was 80 arcsec)[1] and 1.4 GHz (21 cm; the resolution was 20 arcsec, three times better than that of the unaided eye).

Spot The Skeleton Key:





Over a 20 year career, the telescope was used to map individual objects, and to do several deep field surveys. Though still occasionally used, it is now essentially retired (one of the dishes is occasionally used for undergraduate projects or by amateur radio astronomers).






The construction of this telescope and development of the Earth-rotation aperture synthesis used when operating it contributed to Martin Ryle and Antony Hewish receiving the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1974.

Group shot:





Video coming as soon as I find a suitable soundtrack. Really looking forward to everyone else’s pics - already seen a couple of Nelly‘s and they are epic! 

Thanks for looking.


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## nelly (Feb 27, 2012)

I had an epic day fella,and a massive thank you for showing
us around Cambridgeshire, I've never seen people with so many extra fingers!!!

I'll throw a few on the back of yours if that's OK 


























These are the trains that move the middle telescope along the rail





















SK fancied a climb 





The offices





















Time to go home, it had been a very long day


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## Winch It In (Feb 27, 2012)

Fascinating report and great set's of pic's guys.


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## Pincheck (Feb 27, 2012)

nice looking place


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## UrbanX (Feb 27, 2012)

Nelly those photos are epic! Glad to see your getting the most out of that new lens! Great stuff!


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## nelly (Feb 27, 2012)

Cheers fella. Loving yours too 
It was a great day out. Thanks for being our tour guide


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## strokesboy21 (Feb 27, 2012)

looks v good buddy


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## night crawler (Feb 27, 2012)

Quite epic that , love the photo's


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## 4201Chieftain (Feb 27, 2012)

Great photos guys! Nelly, the internal ones turned out well!


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## nelly (Feb 27, 2012)

4201Chieftain said:


> Nelly, the internal ones turned out well!



 Yeah, not bad connsidering I took them through a window. But don't tell any body that, I'd rather they thought I was l33t  

Was good to meet you yesterday fella


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## Priority 7 (Feb 27, 2012)

Nice work guys lovely shots from the both of you


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## John_D (Feb 27, 2012)

Very interesting, seen the dishes from the road many times, prompted by this report to read up on the history of the site. Apparently the fixed 'decommissioned' dish is still used occasionally by graduate students and Radio Amateurs, which would explain the tidiness of the inside of the control building. Must go and take a closer look sometime. :yes:


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## flyboys90 (Feb 27, 2012)

Brilliant report and photos, what an amazing place!


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## oldscrote (Feb 27, 2012)

Thanks chaps that was great,always nice to see something different,as nice a set of photos as I've seen in a while.Love the concept of driving a telescope.....bit different from a cab eh Nelly


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## highcannons (Feb 27, 2012)

Brilliant report and pictures chaps! Really liked the info, thanks for posting. Very differant


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## 4201Chieftain (Feb 27, 2012)

Likewise nelly, hope to do it again soon!


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## godzilla73 (Feb 27, 2012)

Brilliant stuff - so good to see something a bit different. Like the "Ypres" shot as well (check here if you don't get the reference!)


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## Ninja Kitten (Feb 27, 2012)

cracking report..what a fab place!


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## Flexible (Feb 27, 2012)

Superb. I thought Blaw-Knox only made tarmac laying machines.


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## Munchh (Feb 27, 2012)

It's a fantastic site and very nicely photographed guys. Well done and thanks.


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## hydealfred (Feb 27, 2012)

Absolutely superb reports - well done to all


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## King Al (Feb 28, 2012)

Great pics guys! I always enjoy seeing something different


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## Em_Ux (Mar 8, 2012)

I drive past this site every day so nice to see a report on it.

Great shots both of you!


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