Radio Astronmer by Robertson Peter;

Author:Robertson, Peter;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: NewSouth

Paul Wild shortly after the completion of the Radioheliograph. Originally the plan had been to build the instrument on the Parkes site, but it needed a much larger area. A new site was found at Culgoora, near Narrabri in northern NSW, which in 1988 also became the location of the Australia Telescope Compact Array. CSIRO RAIA

The decision in August 1959 to proceed with the Radioheliograph at the expense of the SuperCross meant that Bernie Mills had to look for options outside Radiophysics. He did not have to look far. In May 1960 the offer of a position and resources to build the SuperCross came from Harry Messel, head of the School of Physics at the University of Sydney, a short walk from the Radiophysics Lab. A flamboyant Canadian, Messel took up the chair of physics in 1952 and began a vigorous campaign to recruit new staff, with the aim of transform-ing a scientifically moribund school into a research centre of world class. Messel set up the Science Foundation for Physics and, using his considerable powers of persuasion, began to attract substantial financial backing from private donors. By 1960 he had raised over £3 million to support research within the school – a phenomenal amount of private funding unknown in Australian universities at the time.12

After making a start in nuclear physics and cosmic ray research, Messel decided to broaden the scope of the school and in 1958 announced plans to form an astronomy group. Messel’s star recruit to the new group was Robert Hanbury Brown, Lovell’s right-hand man at Jodrell Bank and a leading expert on radio interferometers. In the early 1950s Hanbury Brown realised that radio techniques might work at optical wavelengths and he developed the design of a stellar intensity interferometer for measuring the size of visible stars. Despite critics who argued that the idea violated quantum theory, Hanbury Brown and his group built a pilot model of the interferometer and succeeded in measuring the diameter of a star to prove the concept worked. For a full-scale version of the instrument, Hanbury Brown decided to leave Cheshire and head for the clearer skies of Australia. The intensity interferometer came into operation in 1962 at Narrabri, in northern New South Wales, not far from the site chosen for the Culgoora Radioheliograph. The first stellar diameter measured with the new instrument was for the blue-white subgiant known as Beta Crucis, the second brightest star in the Southern Cross.

Following Hanbury Brown’s appointment to a new chair of astronomy, Messel decided to strengthen the new group by recruiting another astronomer to establish an optical observatory. His choice was Colin Gum, who had impressive credentials in both optical and radio astronomy. After being awarded one of the first doctorates at the new Australian National University, Gum then spent several years on the staff at Radiophysics. After accepting Messel’s offer, he set off to Europe to order an optical telescope for the new observatory. Tragically, these plans came to an end when Gum was killed in a skiing accident in Switzerland.

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