Space, The Final Frontier... Just off Junction 18 of the M6

Today I donned my protective suit of jeans, trainers and T-Shirt, diving mask and snorkel and boldly went where no mirthmobile had gone before. Jodrell Bank Observatory in deepest Cheshire. Jodrell Bank, or Le Banque Jodrell for any native French speaking readers, is part of the School of Physics and Astronomy at The University of Manchester. The Observatory is home to a number of telescopes which include the Mark II radio telescope and the enormous, 76 metre Lovell Radio Telescope. If you're wondering what happened to the Mark 1 telescope I can reveal that it was renamed the Lovell Telescope in 1987 in honour of it's creator, Sir Bernard Lovell. The Lovell and Mark II telescopes (both shown in the photo above) form part of the MERLIN Array. Put simply, MERLIN consists of six observing stations across England, which, by combining their collective data, form a single, hugely powerful telescope with an effective aperture of over 217 kilometres. MERLIN, if you're interested stands for the "Multi-Element Radio-Linked Interferometer Network" and first came into operation in 1980.

After a very pleasant drive through some magnificent Cheshire villages, I duly arrived at Jodrell Bank. Despite it being called a bank, I was most disappointed to discover their reluctance at changing my £20 note. You see, I've never had that problem at the Natwest; although in fairness I was equally disappointed with Natwest's attempts at discovering alien life forms and also their SKY TV reception isn't half as good ! So I suppose on balance it evens itself out.

The entrance fee was a mere £1.50, car parking was free and the 3D Theatre was an extra £1. If nothing else this day out was going to be inexpensive. The visitor centre was smaller than I had imagined and was largely taken up with a souvenir shop and a cafe. There were however a number of exhibits explaining the solar system. This included a very interesting model which, by way of rubber balls and a funnel, graphically illustrated gravity and why everything spins happily around the sun, and at different speeds, depending on how far away from the sun it is. The focal point of the visitor centre was the 3D theatre. I made my entrance at the appointed time and was handed my 3D glasses - my second pair in 3 weeks bizarrely, as I had also been issued with a pair at the Top Gear MPH show. Thereafter followed an engaging 20 minute film in 3D, about the solar system and the sun in particular. This ended with the rather sombre announcement that the sun would eventually increase dramatically in heat, expand considerably and in so doing, would destroy the Earth before imploding on itself. Fortunately this isn't going to happen for around 5,000 million years so it looks like I'll still have to do my Christmas shopping this year after all.





Outside of the Visitor Centre were a couple of small audio dishes. The dishes were positioned some 50 metres or so apart and directly opposite each other. This exhibit showed how sound can be collected in the dishes and amplified. The exhibit required a person to stand in each dish and speak at their normal level. The sound would bounce off the speakers dish and be collected by the opposite dish where the other person would hear their speech at an amplified volume. It really was amazing to hear someone talking 50 metres away as if they were standing alongside.

The centre piece of the Observatory is the Lovell telescope itself. They've created a walkway that takes you up close to this enormous telescope. The size is truly staggering. It's the 3rd largest steerable radio telescope in the World and a grade 1 listed building. Lovell's is a radio telescope as opposed to the more familiar optical telescope which accounts for why its positioned in dreary Britain where the near constant cloud cover doesn't matter, as the radio signals it monitors, aren't affected by the weather. Optical telescopes on the other hand, which use lenses to view the universe, are always positioned in areas of good climate, usually on top of Mountains where they're often above the clouds in crystal clear skies. The highest optical telescope of course is the Hubble. As it's actually in orbit around the Earth it's totally unaffected by weather and delivers perfectly clear photographic images 24/7.
Lovell's telescope however monitors radio waves emitted from deepest space, which is why it looks like a giant SKY TV dish. Every so often the whole device would start moving on the rails that surround the scope, as the Astronomers would reposition the dish to listen for something else in the heavens or maybe just to account for the spinning of the Earth. It really is an awesome sight and certainly worth taking a diversion to see, if at all possible. As you can imagine, you can see the scope from miles around so you don't even have to visit the Visitor Centre if you don't have the time or the inclination.

Also at the Observatory is the Granada Arboretum. This is a 35 acre landscaped garden featuring over 2000 trees and shrubs and is a haven for nature and wildlife in amongst the Observatory buildings and equipment. It was very tranquil & attractive, despite the increasingly inclement weather and I soon found myself knee deep in squirrels and rabbits whilst overhead, various birds flew by including a couple of large birds of prey. Underfoot it was rather muddy in places but that was due to my leaving the gravel paths in search of good photographic locations. After an hour of solitude - nobody else seemed to have bothered with the Arboretum today which was a bonus for me but a loss for them - I slowly made my way back to the car and latterly towards home as the sun started setting.

So In summary, I had a good walk around Space today. It might have been a small step for Neil Armstrong but it was a long walk for a little guy like me. Next weekend ? I'm ghost hunting in Nottingham. Should be fun and I'll tell all on my return.

So until the next time.

Ta Ta