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Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics

Purple blank background with a central cluster of small telescopes making up a globe symbol

Facilities

The Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics is involved in the operation, construction and support of a number of facilities.

Telescope at Defford
Telescope at Defford

e-MERLIN and VLBI National Facility 

e-MERLIN is the UK's facility for high resolution radio astronomy observations, operated by the Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics and The University of Manchester for the Science and Technology Facilities Council.

It is an array of seven radio telescopes across the UK, connected to a powerful central correlator at Jodrell Bank Observatory and operated as a dedicated radio interferometer to produce high-resolution images.

With a maximum baseline length of 220 km, e-MERLIN provides a unique capability for microjansky sensitivity radio imaging, spectroscopy, polarisation and astrometry at 0.01-0.15-arcsec resolution in broad frequency bands centres at 1.5, 5 and 22 GHz (L, C and K bands).

Find out more on the e-MERLIN website

Antenna dishes at ALMA
Antenna dishes at ALMA

Atacama Large Millimetre Array (ALMA)

The Atacama Large Millimetre Array (ALMA) is the largest observatory ever built operating at millimetre and submillimetre wavelengths in the world, and will provide astronomers with dramatic new insights into the formation of stars and galaxies.

ALMA will eventually comprise 66 individual telescopes that are combined electronically to simulate a telescope diameter of up to 16km - more than a thousand times the diameter of a single individual telescope within the array.

At Jodrell Bank Observatory, we are involved in the area of digital fibre optic transmission and have developed various aspects of the system which transmit the high-bandwidth signals from the individual antennas to the central correlator. We now host the UK ALMA Regional Centre Node to provide support for UK scientists using the telescope.

Find out more on the UK ALMA Regional Centre website

high performance computer close-up
High performance computer

High Performance Computing (HPC)

To carry out many of the research activities of the JBCA we have access to HPC facilities within the group, on campus, and at regional and national levels. These include facilities owned by the JBCA and those of consortia of which our staff or groups are members.

JBCA

  • GALAHAD - Radio Astronomy Research Cluster
  • HYDRUS - Pulsar Searching Cluster
  • JUMPER - Lovell Telescope Pulsar Backend Cluster
  • ADDER - LEAP Project Data Processing Cluster
  • CENTAURUS - Theory and Modelling Cluster
  • FORNAX - Cosmology Cluster
  • Individual High-End Workstations - General Use

University

  • CSF3 - University IT Services Cluster
  • Campus Condor Pool - University Distributed Cluster

National/Consortium

  • ARCHER2 - National HPC Facility
  • DiRAC - STFC Theory HPC Facility
  • IRIS - STFC Digital Infrastructure