I still love this job

We had some "Good News" at work the other day.
Jodrell Bank Observatory has been selected as the home for the Square Kilometre Array Project Office. The SKA will be the world's largest radio telescope and it will be located in either Australia or South Africa. It is a global effort by astronomers and engineers from many countries, so being chosen as the place where the whole project will be managed is quite a coup.
Inevitably, news like this generates media interest...

I was working a Day Shift on Monday when the 'phone rang.
"Control room?..."
"Oh, hello. This is Kate from the BBC. Could I speak to Professor Simon Garrington?"
"I'm sorry, but I'm afraid I can't transfer you from this 'phone. It's a dedicated line just for the telescope control room. Hold on a moment, let me give you his office number."
"OK.Thanks."
I checked the internal directory and gave her the number, she said "Thanks" again, and that was that...
Until I realized that I'd given her the wrong 'phone number.
"Oh great," I thought. "That'll make a good impression. I wonder if I can ring her back with the right number." I quickly called "1471", got her number and gave it a ring.
"Er, hello." I said. "This is the Controller at Jodrell Bank. You called a couple of minutes ago, but I've just realized that I gave you the wrong telephone number. Look, sorry to have messed you about ,but I've got the correct number now, if you still need it."
"That's OK. I'm almost there now. I should be arriving at the Main Building in a couple of minutes."
"Oh. I didn't realize you were en route. If you park right outside the front entrance, I'll buzz you in."
"Thanks."

Simon met the lady from the BBC in the foyer, so it was about half an hour later that they both came into the Control Room to do a short TV interview about the SKA news.
"This is Kate Simms, from BBC North West News. And this is Kim our Duty Controller for the day."
As we shook hands I said "I'm afraid we've already spoken. I'm the bloke who gives out duff information and wrong numbers."
Honesty is usually the best policy.

Kate Simms is charming. Considering that she was working to quite a tight schedule, she was impressively down-to-earth.and calm. There was no visible trace of the stress or terseness that occasionally reveals itself when media folk are working to a deadline.
She singlehandedly recorded a short TV interview with Simon at ground level, then she lugged all her camera gear up into the telescope bowl to shoot a second interview, before returning to the Control Room to join the crew who had arrived with a satellite communications truck, to prepare for a live interview which was seamlessly dropped into the lunchtime news.

You've got to say it's a good day at work when, not only do,you get to hear some good news, but you also meet a genuinely charming celebrity.
 
SKA Image Credit: Swinburne Astronomy Productions/SKA Program Development Office

Not my turn in the spotlight

This evening, BBC Television will be broadcasting the first of a three night series called "Stargazing Live". These programs will be shown at 8 pm, on BBC2 and will be hosted by Professor Brian Cox and Dara O'Briain, live from Jodrell Bank.

I haven't seen the Control Room in so much turmoil since we had the film crew from "The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy" doing a two day shoot a few years ago. In front of the Control Desk the set design team has built a raised area and a pair of platforms for large, plasma display screens. There are an array of studio lights strung from the ceiling, various microphones in strategic places, lighting control panels, audio mixers and all the miles of cable that go with them.
The rest of the main building is festooned with temporary signs and arrows pointing the way to the Production Office, Makeup, Green Room, Rehearsal Room and Dressing Rooms. Outside the building there's the kind of circus that always accompanies this sort of undertaking.
There's the "Gallery Truck", with an enormous articulated trailer which houses the outside broadcast control room. This appears to be one of those origami vehicles where the walls extend in all directions creating an internal working space that would otherwise be impossible to achieve. It's probably as close as you can get to having an actual TARDIS.
There are lighting trucks, satellite communication vans, catering trucks, a marquee laid out with tables for refreshments, portable toilets, generators, water bowsers, a mobile security post and a bunch of other non-specific vans.

The thing that's difficult to believe is that when I finished my shift yesterday morning, none of this stuff was here. As I walked out of the Control Room, the set designer and his team had just pulled up outside the Main Building.
While I was at home asleep, the place was transformed.

It's just the luck of the draw which of the six controllers gets which shift when this sort of event is on.
I can't decide whether or not to be disappointed that I'm not on-shift for all the fun and games. It's always interesting to be behind the scenes and watch how media stuff works, but it can be quite stressful too. We cannot afford to let the artistic demands of the TV crew influence any operational decisions about the way the telescope is driven. There's always the chance that you'll have to tell the director that he's not going to get his preferred shot of the telescope positioned low to the horizon because the wind is too strong.
As you can imagine, that doesn't go down too well, but it's better than breaking the telescope.

Anyway, if you were hoping to catch a glimpse of me actually working you are going to be out of luck. Your Controller for Monday and Tuesday evening's shows will be Jock, and on Wednesday it will be Andy.

 "We are in control...": Andy and Jock are second and third from the left, respectively.

What time is it...?

I'd like to make an appeal to all of you lucky folk who have been wallowing in the luxury of an extra hour in bed, this morning.

Spare a thought for shift workers.

Yes, it's that time of year again, when we "put the clocks back" by an hour, taking us from the balmy days of British Summer Time to the dismal gloom of Greenwich Mean Time.

Why am I asking you to consider those of us that do shift work?

Well, here's the thing.
My colleague who was working the night shift last night, began work at 23:45 and would normally finish at 08:15, eight and a half hours later.
Unfortunately for him, at 02:00, he had to put his watch back to 01:00 and do the hour between 01:00 and 02:00 for a second time. Therefore he was expected to work for nine and a half hours instead.
Obviously, if someone always works night shifts, the situation is reversed in Spring, so they work for an hour less on the shift that the clocks are changed.
Our shift pattern is not fixed, however, so there is no guarantee that the person who wins in the Spring, will be the loser in the Autumn.

To help spread the misery (or joy), all of the Jodrell Bank Telescope Controllers have a "Gentleman's Agreement" to split these problematic hours between the two people working the Night Shift and the Day Shift.

It ought to have been simple enough, you'd think.
All I had to do was, get to work in time to let my colleague go home after he had done an extra half hour. It should have been especially easy as I actually didn't have to arrive at work until half an hour later than usual, even though the clock would show it as half an hour earlier.
The trouble was, that a few years ago I had the same set of circumstances and I got it hopelessly wrong.
A miscalculation with the time I was expected to get to work, combined with a mistake setting my alarm clock (a particularly smart model, which automatically resets itself to the correct time by picking up radio signals from an atomic clock somewhere) and the net result was that arrived at work one and a half hours early.
I really didn't want to witness for a second time, the complex and infuriating mixture of glee and pity that passed across my colleague's face when he realized what I'd managed to do.

This time it would be different..
I'd set the clock correctly. I knew when I was supposed to get up. I was determined not to make the same mistake twice. Blight of-my-life had double-checked the calculations. There was no way I was going to get caught out again.

Unfortunately, the brilliantly hi-tech radio-linked, bloody clock failed to pick up the radio signal that should have told it to change to GMT, and it woke me up an hour earlier than I'd intended, at five o'clock.

Next time I need to work out what time it is, I shall ask a man (and I use the term in its loosest sense) who knows.

Ready when you are, Eccles...

Rarer than a Solar Eclipse

I quite often have to remind people that I am not an astronomer.
This is probably a less familiar disclaimer than "I am not a lawyer..." or "I am not a doctor...", but it is something that I need to say every so often, because there is a reasonable expectation that somebody who sits at the controls of the radio telescope at Jodrell Bank must be an astronomer.
It may surprise you, but employing an astronomer as a Controller to operate the Lovell Radio Telescope has traditionally been discouraged.
The reasoning behind this seemingly bizarre policy, is that you want the people who are operating the telescope to be focussed on the wellbeing of the instrument rather than the research that is being carried out.
For example. Someone who is keen to complete a particular astronomical observation might be reluctant to stop observing even though the strength of the wind has risen to a point where the structure could suffer irreperable damage.

In spite of not being an astronomer I do need to know some astronomy and so I have to refer to "The Astronomical Almanac". This is published each year and contains a vast array of data concerning the behaviour of the Sun, Moon, the Planets and Pluto, as well as coordinates of many different types of stars and galaxies.
Amongst the phenomena that are listed are any eclipses of the Sun or Moon and where they can be observed on the Earth's surface. I used to think that solar eclipses were pretty unusual but since I started working as a Telescope Controller, I've discovered that they happen comparatively often. Two years ago there were two total eclipses of the Sun, last year there was one, and if you were on The Cook Islands, Polynesia or the southern tip of South America just over a week ago you would have been ideally place to experience the phenomenon.

Something that is far rarer than an eclipse is getting all six Telescope Controllers together at the same time. For safe operation of our telescopes it is essential that there is always a Controller on duty, for every hour of every day of the year. This, of course means that on any day, three Controllers will be covering the eight hour shifts while the remaining three will be on rest days or on leave.

In the ten years that I've been doing the job I had never seen more than four Controllers in the same room at the same time, but last Thursday we finally managed to get the full set.

...and here's the proof.
 

They said it couldn't be done... 

What lies beneath

I reckon that there's always something intriguing about the stuff that lurks behind the scenes at any workplace. I suppose that this may be one of the reasons why fly-on-the-wall documentaries are so popular.
What self-respecting nosey so-and-so wouldn't want to get a sneaky peek at the inner workings of an aircraft carrier or the back-stage business at a major theatre.

When I was a very small boy I was fascinated by those small doors that could be seen in wooden hoardings that surrounded building sites. Trailing along behind my Mum on a trip to the shops, I always wanted to linger in the hope of catching a glimpse of the exciting things that were going on behind those blank plywood facades. Occasionally these doors would be tantalisingly open and the wonderland could be seen. Cement mixers, piles of bricks, pneumatic drills and all the other paraphernalia of construction were briefly fully revealed.

I hadn't realized just how much I had been captivated by the mystery of what lay behind the door to the World of The Building Site until one day, nearly twenty years later, I actually stepped through one such door.
I was working on the redevelopment of the shopping centre in the middle of Stratford on Avon and my mates and I had just been for breakfast at "The Hatch" Cafe. As we clumped along Wood Street in our cement-crusted boots, up to the blank blue door, I noticed that we were being watched by a small boy, as his mother hurried him along the pavement. It was like travelling back in time and seeing myself. I could imagine him thinking, "I wish I could go through that door..."
I've never really had any grand scheme or a life plan, but at that moment I knew that I'd fulfilled some kind of ambition.

It's probably just as well that I've never had a Life Plan, because there is no way that I would have ended up doing my present job if I'd tried to follow any sensible career strategy. I think I just got very lucky
So here's a special behind the scenes picture of a part of Jodrell Bank that not too many people get to see.

This is the tunnel that runs from the Basement of the Main Building to the Annular Lab, under the Lovell Telescope. It lies beneath the concrete path you can see leading away from the foreground of the picture at the top of this post.

This tunnel is the main service duct for cables that supply electrical power for the telescope motors and the many control and data feeds that run from the receivers to the instrument racks in the Observing Room. It also provides a convenient subterranean route for our staff to get to the telescope structure.

One of the best things about this tunnel is that it wouldn't look out of place in many computer games.
Anybody who has played "Half Life 2" or "Deus Ex" will know what I'm on about.
It's also the kind of location that you find in the sort of film where someone always says, "I'll just go down and check the tunnel...", shortly before dying horribly.

If zombies ever invade Jodrell Bank, I know where they'll be coming in...

Goodbye 'Stealthy Ninja'

Yesterday, a small group of us from work, went to the funeral of Rob Kemp, who worked here at Jodrell Bank as a security guard.

Of the people who have patrolled this site over the years, Rob was one of the few who actively enjoyed the amount of walking it entailed.
Having to make several circuits of the site during a shift gave him ample opportunity to observe all the wildlife that we have here. He said that being able to keep tabs on the rabbits, stoats, buzzards, owls and peregrine falcons, made every day less like work and more like a nature ramble.

Rob's sudden and untimely death came as a great shock to all of us who worked alongside him, but our deepest sympathies are with his partner and his family.

Robert Kemp: 1960 to 2010

Moon

I don't go to the cinema very often these days.
I used to go a couple of times a month, but when the privately owned, independent cinema in our nearest town was closed down it became so much less convenient.
I also can't stomach the overwhelming reek of popcorn and burgers that seems to be unavoidable at most multi-screens.
...and don't get me started on the noise. The sound of people nattering and munching is so loud, that you can't hear the soundtrack during the quiet parts unless they turn up the volume to such a level that when there's a loud bit on screen, your ear drums implode from the sound pressure.
In short, going to see a film just isn't enjoyable these days.

Fortunately, our local library has a good selection of recent DVD releases, so I can catch up with stuff that I've missed fairly smartly. One of last year's films that I was keen to see was "Moon", so when I spotted it on the shelves, I decided to give it a go.

This excellent movie stars Sam Rockwell. It's a real pleasure to watch some science fiction where the setting, an isolated lunar mining facility, is fundamental to the story rather than just an excuse for a load of flashy special effects baloney. Rockwell plays Sam Bell, the sole human inhabitant of the place as he nears the end of his three year contract. Direct communication with Earth has been lost, so Sam is reduced to sending and receiving recorded messages from home or talking to GERTY, the facility's computer. Given this isolation, it is unsurprising that Sam becomes increasingly unsettled until, distracted by the appearance of a woman who cannot possibly be there, he has an accident out on the lunar surface.
As Sam recovers, he makes a disturbing discovery that feeds his paranoia and sense of dislocation as the mystery develops.
This is a first class thriller.

Science fiction is often a convenient way to present a well-worn idea in a new guise. With 'Moon' we have a story that isn't just a re-tread of a plot that we've seen before  in a thousand westerns or detective stories; the time and the place that it takes place are intrinsic to the drama.

On a more personal note, I found it easy to empathise with Sam.
When I'm alone in the Control Building in the early hours of the morning, watching the Lovell Telescope scan the stars, it sometimes feels like I'm the last man on Earth.

The view from my window

I was talking to one of my brothers the other evening, on the 'phone, and he asked me,
"Just how high off the ground are you in the telescope control room?"
When I told him that the Control Room is in a building at ground level, and not actually on the telescope itself, he seemed quite disappointed.
If he'd been the first person to ask this question, I might have been tempted to give him a hard time, but it's not uncommon for people to think that we drive the telescope from a control cabin, perched high up on the structure like the operator of a building-site tower crane.

The working environment is a lot less spartan than that and although the view from the Control Room windows is dominated by the dish, we are a couple of hundred metres away from it.

In the Google-map view below, you can see the Control Building down and to the right of the Lovell Telescope, at the end of the straight path.


View Larger Map

For any astronomers out there, the position of the dish in the Google image would be typical for pulsar observations; generally South and close to the horizon.

Sometimes you just get lucky

The weather was pretty miserable here yesterday; no sun at all, 10mm of rain and horrible squally winds. When you get a duff day like that, it makes you appreciate it when you have one like today.
OK, it is December in Northern England, so you can't expect miracles, but at about 8:30 this morning, when I was scheduling a run of pulsar observations, the low winter sunlight striking the Lovell Telescope looked lovely.

Then I noticed the vapour-trail...

I'm really glad I had my camera with me.

Competition Time : Spot the Difference

Springfield Nuclear Power Plant Control Room

Jodrell Bank Radio Telescope Control Room

The similarities are quite uncanny, so I may have got these pictures muddled up.

You decide.

Downpour n. a heavy fall of rain

The weather has been rather unusual recently. It's summertime and we're having great dollops of lovely warm sunshine, blue skies and balmy breezes.

Just to compensate , however, we've also had quite a few enormous rain storms; fearsome deluges, occasionally with hailstones, accompanied by salvoes of thunder and lightning. This is much more like the summer weather I'm used to.

As I was driving to work on Saturday for a night shift, it became clear that there'd been some serious rain at Jodrell Bank, even though three miles earlier it had remained stubbornly dry. The driveway from the main entrance was completely flooded in two places so when I got to the Control Room I thought I'd better warn my colleague to take care when he left at midnight.
He wasn't at all surprised that the drive was awash,
"I've never seen so much rain fall in such a short space of time." he said
"Have a look at the rain chart..."

We take meteorology readings every day and although we no longer supply data to The Meteorological Office, the information is used by our astronomers.
We have a Rain Gauge to record the amount of rainfall every day and we also have a Rainfall Chart Recorder that shows when and how quickly the rain falls. That's the handsome, brass instrument in a glass box in the picture.

When I looked at the chart I could see what he meant.

When the Rain Gauge was read the following morning, the total rainfall for the day was 35mm and, as you can see from the picture of the chart, most of it fell in about fifteen minutes. Quite extraordinary.

It's a good job it didn't rain like that at Glastonbury...

"The sun has got his hat on..."

This lovely looking thing is a Campbell Stokes pattern sunshine recorder. It focusses the light (and heat) of the sun through the spherical glass lens, onto a special strip of card. The card is scorched but does not burst into flames, leaving a burnt track that records the duration and intensity of the sunshine.

One of my tasks during a Day Shift, is to collect meteorology data, and changing the sun chart is part of this routine.

I was particularly pleased today, because it was the first Equinoctial Card of the year. There are three different types of card; one for winter when the sun is low in the sky, one for summer when it is at it's highest and an equinoctial card for spring and autumn.

The arrival of the spring, equinoctial card signals the part of the year when the length of days increases at the fastest rate. This always makes me feel good, because it means that soon it'll be summer, and that even Night Shifts will have quite a bit of daylight.

I mentioned this to my Guv'nor today, and he said, "Most people get that feeling when they see the daffodils coming out."

Anyone would think that there's something strange about the sight of scorched cardboard raising ones spirit

.

I love this job!

Here's one of the things that make my job absolutely brilliant. It's the view from what you might call "my office window" at Jodrell Bank. It is, of course, the Lovell Telescope; this is what I drive for a living.

The picture was taken today, shortly after ten to four in the morning. I was coming up to the half-way point in my eight hour shift. I'd got a nice efficient set of pulsar observations scheduled, the wind was very light and although there was a reasonable amount of snow on the ground, none was falling, so everything was pretty much optimal. 

We don't normally run a lot of lights on the telescope because of the light pollution, but it's a good idea to occasionally test run the security floods. 

When I switched them on, I was so chuffed with how the structure looked, with the Moon peering over the shoulder of Red Tower, I just had to get a photo'.