LOFAR @ Hamburger Sternwarte

Information: 2nd International LOFAR Workshop, September 16-19, 2008 in Hamburg

LOFAR, the LOw Frequency Array, is an entirely new radio telescope, that works without any moving parts, though it observes the whole sky within seconds. At the moment, the telescope is constructed in the Netherlands (--> status quo) and has a diameter of more than 100 km. German institutes are planning to expand the LOFAR telescope throughout Germany. This would increase the resolution of the telscope by five times. LOFAR would then be the world's largest telescope facility, that is linked via fiber optic cable. The first german LOFAR-Station at the site of the Effelsberg radio telescope in the Eifel mountains took up operation in autumn 2007. Other stations at Garching (Unterweilenbach), Potsdam (Bornim), Jülich and in Tautenburg are already financed and will be built up in 2008/2009. LOFAR grows to a pan-European project. More stations in England, France and Sweden are financed yet.


Locations of LOFAR-stations in Germany. Graphic: D. Lehmann, AIP Potsdam red=financed orange=planned	Antenna field at Borger-Odoorn (NL) Picture: ASTRON, Dwingeloo/Niederlande

To provide a more uniform distribution of the baselines, more stations near the LOFAR-core in Exloo would be beneficial. Therefore additional LOFAR-stations near Bremen and Hamburg are considered. One station consists of a field of 100 antennas and computer hardware for data communication.

LOFAR News

LOFAR picks up speed (MPIfR press release, 12/2007)

Further information:

Last update: Thursday, 19-Jun-2008 16:02:14 CEST | D. Engels