LOFAR - Digital Telescope to Observe the Birth of Stars

Astronomers at the School of Physical Sciences, University of Kent, have joined an innovative project that aims to address many of the key issues in astrophysics. The University’s main role will be to search for signals which accompany the birth of stars.

Such an undertaking will require the completion of arrays of antennas to detect radio waves at metre-long wavelengths. The low frequencies of these waves gives rise to the telescope by the name of LOFAR – the LOw Frequency ARray. The arrays will be spread across the Netherlands, Germany, France and Great Britain.

LOFAR is the first telescope of this new sort, using an array of simple omni-directional antennas instead of mechanical signal processing with a dish. The electronic signals from the antennas are digitised, transported to a central digital processor, and combined in software to emulate a conventional antenna.

.">Science Daily