Dr. Norbert Junkes

Radio Astronomy at Effelsberg: the giant 100 meter dish and the first international LOFAR station



The development of radio astronomy in Germany in the last forty years is closely connected with the 100m radio telescope of the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy (MPIfR) near Effelsberg. The telescope was built between 1968 and 1971 and performs radio observations in a wide wavelength range between 70 cm and 3 mm.

A complementary extension of the 100m telescope to lower frequencies, giving access to the early universe, is provided by LOFAR, the "Low Frequency Array". LOFAR will form a software-based European-wide radio telescope at meter wavelengths with a number of stations in different European countries connected via fast internet. The first internatonal LOFAR station with 96 dipole receivers was recently built at the Effelsberg site.

LOFAR is also the European precursor for the SKA ("Square Kilometer Array"), the international project for radio astronomy in the next decade.



Biographische Angaben:
Dr. Norbert Junkes hat von 1979 bis 1986 an der Universität Bonn Physik und Astronomie studiert (Diplomarbeit 1986), und dann 1989 am Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie (MPIfR) im Fach Astronomie zum Thema "Supernova-Überreste und ihre Wechselwirkung mit dem interstellaren Medium" promoviert. Nach wissenschaftlicher Tätigkeit in Australien (Australia Telescope National Facility, ATNF, Sydney), in Kiel (Institut für Theoretische Physik und Astrophysik) und in Potsdam (Astrophysikalisches Institut Potsdam, AIP) arbeitet er seit Februar 1998 am MPIfR im Bereich der Öffentlichkeitsarbeit.



Last modified on Tuesday June 10th, 2007.
Norbert Junkes (njunkes@mpifr-bonn.mpg.de)