The Ryle Telescope, Harlton
Last time I was up this way (Pampisford/Cambridge) a photographer on Twitter photographer Brian Stevens suggested I pop over and see the radio telescopes to the West of Cambridge. It turns out he grew up around here and recognised photos of the area I was posting at the time. I remembered this on Christmas eve and had a poke around on Google and Bing Maps to see what was worth seeing and what the access was like. Unfortunately Christmas eve was a wash out so I couldn’t get out for pictures, I also wasn’t keen on going in the dark to be honest without having scouted it first in the daylight.
The site is called the MRAO or the The Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory and is made up of a number of radio telescopes. The one that seemed to be most interesting and also easiest to access is the Ryle Telescope which is made up of eight dishes. The text on the page describing the purpose of them is a little beyond my scientific understanding really. However I knew there’d be a few decent shots to be had. The structures of the dishes is pretty spectacular up close and so incongruous to the surrounding flat lands of the Cambridgeshire countryside.
Unfortunately the light was fairly flat today and it also involved a bit of a schlep across a field of claggy mud to get to the right spot.
Whilst I was probably trespassing in the field as there was no right of way it was out of season for crops so I wasn’t doing any damage. I also tried to not get too close to the actual dishes or trespass on their property as I’m sure a bunch of grumpy security guards wouldn’t have been too far away.
