LOFAR telescope open for business

On Tuesday 19 and Wednesday 20 March, one hundred astronomers from all over the world will travel to the town of Dalfsen in the Netherlands for a 2-day workshop about the International LOFAR Telescope (ILT), designed and built by ASTRON. Now that the first fully operational observing cycle has started and the telescope is open to the whole astronomical community, LOFAR is officially open for business.

The LOFAR telescope owes its strength to revolutionary new techniques and software for the processing of unprecedented large data streams from an extensive network of relatively simple radio receivers, concentrated in the north-east of the Netherlands and spread over Germany, France, the UK and Sweden.

Eighteen months ago, during the commissioning and test phase of LOFAR, the first LOFAR science workshop was held, also in Dalfsen. Since then, new antenna stations have been added to the array and the sensitivity of the telescope has improved, as well as the processing software. Besides this, the first appealing scientific results have already been published in different renowned scientific journals.

During the workshop next week, builders and users of the telescope, as well as owners of the different international antenna stations, will exchange science results and technical ideas and deepen the collaboration to get the most out of the LOFAR telescope at both the national and international level.

Contact:
Femke Boekhorst
Phone: +31 521 595 204 and +31 6 21 23 42 43.
E-mail: boekhorst@astron.nl.