Comment | 'The Lovell telescope is more than a scientific instrument'
I would recommend you take a train from Crewe to Manchester. Passing Holmes Chapel, of Harry Styles fame, then little known Goostrey, the abrupt appearance of an awesome contraption lures to be touched. Ascending the likes of Mow Cop, Shining Tor or Beeston Castle, one is drawn by that alien mark in the Cheshire landscape.
When my weekly run takes me back from Norton in Hales towards my hometown of pretty Domesday-book Audlem, scaling a southern vein from the Pennine ridge, I face the impeccably white dish that is the Lovell radio telescope. One of the most impressive artificial structures in the North West, it was made as the country rebuilt from the devastation of war. It pioneered radio astronomy, opening an entirely unfamiliar window on the Universe. It didn't take long for it to discover the most exotic and spectacular things in space - neutron stars denser than all of humanity compressed on a teaspoon; quasars that harbour the blackest of black yet shine the brightest of all, testing and stretching our understanding of physics, the same principles that underpin our everyday lives. Concurrently, we ventured into space ourselves, landing on the Moon and littering Earth's backyard. The Lovell telescope played a crucial role then, as it does today.
But nothing comes for free, money is finite and everyone claims theirs is a priority. Public services need to be costed; health and social care, potholes and to some, defence trump everything. But nothing is uniquely important to deserve all our effort and resources, or society would stall. We are people who crave to live, whose curiosity has granted us the mod-cons we often take for granted. Whether its arts, sports and general entertainment, or hard-core science, these are just as much our blood and joy as we need medical service or bobbies on the beat. Why did Placebo shoot a music video on Lovell's surface? Why does the Blue Dot festival attract people to Jodrell Bank? Why are children enthralled by the sight of a behemoth that dwarfs the largest of known dinosaurs?
Inspiration, instilled desire to be creative and a passion to break out of one's mould and turn imagination into reality are the air that inflates the lungs of society. The government needs to be responsible in their spending, but responsible governance also recognises where spending a little can go far beyond the horizons of expectation. With the government's commitment to fiscal devolution, a litmus test is whether Number 10 in the North will ensure the future scientific life of Jodrell Bank, or let the iconic metallic eye close for good, only for time to take it down as it has done to the legendary Greenbank and Arecibo dishes, silencing them in front of numbed spectators. Go visit Jodrell Bank's wondrous visitor centre and see the Lovell telescope spy space, before it is too late and all you'd be looking at is a pile of lifeless mess.
Keele Observatory has got oodles of curiosa, one being an old photographic meteor camera that was used at Jodrell Bank to take pictures of "shooting stars" while the radio telescope detected radiation from the air heated by their hypersonic incursion. Talking of which, the Perseids are upon us, a magnificent stream of grit left behind by comet Swift-Tuttle and through which the Earth ploughs every year in its orbit around the Sun. It peaks around August 12, which happens to also feature a deep (if partial) eclipse of the Sun. That means the Moon is New and won't interfere with dark skies (if you can find any - move away from streetlights and ideally towns and cities).
Join us and our friends from Newchapel Observatory at Keele University to witness the eclipse between 6pm and 8pm on Wednesday 12th August (peak around 7pm); it's free and for all ages, with solar telescopes and eclipse glasses available - unless it's raining! For more details see https://www.keele.ac.uk/observatory or email astro.obs@keele.ac.uk
