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Welcome to the LOFAR-UK Pages for Astronomers

The LOw Frequency ARray, LOFAR, is a next-generation software-driven telescope. LOFAR consists of many thousands of antennae spread all over Europe run from it's headquarters in The Netherlands by ASTRON. Operating in the poorly explored 30-240 MHz frequency range, with an unprecedented field of view and multiple beams, it is opening up a completely new phase of radio astrophysics.

LOFAR will revolutionize our ability to study the Universe and allow us to address five of the nine key science questions on the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) roadmap, namely:

• What is the universe made of and how does it evolve?
• Are we alone in the universe?
• How do galaxies, stars and planets form and evolve?
• What are the laws of physics in extreme conditions?
• How does the Sun affect the Earth?

LOFAR-UK is a consortium of 22 UK scientific/academic institutions, which has successfully installed a LOFAR international station in Chilbolton, Hampshire. This station is known as the Rawlings Array, in memory of Professor Stephen Rawlings.

For information on observing with the International LOFAR Telescope, see here

Information on using the Rawlings Array as a stand-alone array can be found on this page

Check out the latest LOFAR news on the main LOFAR site

Follow LOFAR on Twitter

Visit the LOFAR USERS Forum

This is a wiki site. If it doesn't contain what you think it should and you are a member of the LOFAR-UK consortium you can edit it yourself. If you don't know how to edit a wiki, use the help pages in the sidebar, or wikipedia has great help pages. If you don't have the right passwords please use the contact details (on the menu to the left) to ask.

LOFAR:UK Timeline

(for more details on recent events see the blog)

• [Mar 2012] First open call for proposals issued for use of Chilbolton station in stand-alone mode
• [Feb 2012] Student army remobilizes to repair January storm damage.
• [Jan 2012] Array suffers some storm damage, damaging 1 HBA and 15 LBAs
• [Jan 2011] First commissioning images with Chilbolton released - http://blog.lofar-uk.org/2011/02/first-images-from-lofar-including.html
• [Jan 2011] First fringes between Chilbolton and the Netherlands
• [Dec 2010] First data packets transmitted from Chilbolton to Groningen over the fast link.
• [Oct 2010] Network link installed
• [Sept 2010] LOFAR-UK station now opened - http://blog.lofar-uk.org/2010/09/official-lofar-uk-opening.html
• [Summer 2010] Installation of Chilbolton Station
• [Nov 2009] Component parts for LOFAR:UK Chilbolton Station arrived from The Netherlands
• [Aug 2009] Planning permission granted by Test Valley Borough Council for Chilbolton LOFAR station
• [Jun 2009] LOFAR Surveys workshop
• [Nov 2008] STFC PPRP recommendation made to PPAN (for decision Jan 2009)
• [May 2008] Chilbolton is chosen as the first LOFAR-UK site!
• [May 2008] SEPNET is funded by HEFCE and allows three new universities to join LOFAR-UK (Sussex, Kent, QMUL)
• [July 2007] UK sites are RFI tested by main LOFAR team (see photo from Owain Davies @ Chilbolton)
• [Jan 2007] Final version of the LOFAR-UK White Paper released.