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SKA Partner Countries visit HartRAO - 2013-07-10


The South African Department of Science and Technology (DST) and the South African SKA Project Office (SKA-SA) co-hosted the 9th Working Group and 5th Steering Committee meetings on the 8 and 9 July 2013 respectively. These meetings follow the announcement by the SKA international office of the outcome of the bidding process, awarding Africa the right to host the major share of the SKA including the core site. The main objective of the meetings was to chart a way forward for SKA in Africa and consolidation of the African VLBI Network (AVN) roll-out plan. The AVN is an African project led by the South African Department of Science and Technology with the South African SKA Project and HartRAO aimed at building astronomy capacity in Africa pre SKA. Initial funding for developing the AVN has been provided by the African Renaissance Fund (ARF) managed by South Africa's Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO).

On 10 July 2013, representatives of the Partner Countries visited HartRAO to learn more on operational VLBI radio telescopes in action and to see how radio astronomy can be used for outreach.

HartRAO Director Dr. Michael Gaylard hosted the visit, and the pictures below capture some of the action.

rockets
Left click on image for large version. Credit: Tony Dhlamini / HartRAO
A fun way to learn some basic physics is launching water rockets. Here Mike prepares the visitors on the tricks of getting the rockets to go as high as possible.

dstv telescope
Left click on image for large version. Credit: Tony Dhlamini / HartRAO
A standard domestic satellite TV dish can be equipped with a "radiometer" to measure the strength of radio signals being received. This enables it to be used as a simple radio telescope, one sensitive enough to detect the radio waves from the Sun. A loudspeaker also turns the detected signal into sound, so that the "hiss" from the Sun can be compared with the man-made signals from the satellites broadcasting the TV signals that the dish is normally used to receive. With a bit of not too difficult math, the temperature of the Sun at the operating frequency of the dish can also be calculated.

Earth
Left click on image for large version. Credit: Tony Dhlamini / HartRAO
Which way up should the Earth be? Is there a "right" answer?

Earth
Left click on image for large version. Credit: Tony Dhlamini / HartRAO
The visiting group in front of the 26-metre radio telescope at HartRAO.

Earth
Left click on image for large version. Credit: Keith Jones / HartRAO
The delegates from Mozambique visited the 7.6-metre satellite dish at the nearby Telkom satellite station that is being converted into a training telescope for Mozambique as part of the AVN initiative. HartRAO engineering manager Keith Jones and antenna technician Jacques Grobler showed the antenna to the visitors, and Jacques is seen on the left of this picture of the group in the equipment room that will go with the converted antenna.

Earth
Left click on image for large version. Credit: Keith Jones / HartRAO
The Mozambican group with the antenna pedestal on the left and equipment room on the right.

Telkom
Left click on image for large version. Credit: Keith Jones / HartRAO
The Mozambican group with the antenna and equipment room.

Telkom
Left click on image for large version. Credit: Jacques Grobler / HartRAO
Keith Jones with Mozambican team at the 7.6m antenna.