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© Harm Jan Stiepel
In 1956, when it was the largest radio telescope in the world, Prof Oort invited Queen Juliana to open it for the first time with the words: "Please push this button, if it pleases your Majesty". This time, Prof Joe Taylor was invited to push the same button(*) with almost the same phrase(**).
The picture shows the moment when the telescope dish showered(***) a large number of Earth balloons into the hands of an enthousiastic crowd of children. This was meant to symbolise the outreach that CAMRAS is planning, in addition to scientific experiments.
(*) The famous button is the blue-and-gold contraption in the right foreground. It was lovingly preserved by an unusually prescient employee, and was also used by Her to open the WSRT in 1970, and by Queen Beatrix to open the LOFAR telescope in 2010.
(**) The only difference was the honorific "your Nobility", referring to his 1993 Nobel Prize. The only other Nobel laureate present was Prof Martin Veltman (1999).
(***) The release of the balloons was not without problems, as behooves a ceremony about high science and technology. But, being amateurs, the CAMRAS people quickly solved the problem.
