LOFAR station DE609 (Hamburg) extending the ILT

© Nico Ebbendorf

The construction of the 9th international LOFAR station, known as DE609-Hamburg is nearing completion. After an extended period of looking for a suitable location, and some negotiation with the land owner, construction work started at the beginning of October.

This new LOFAR site is located north of the city of Hamburg, in a small town called Norderstedt. In the last 4 weeks, a total of 96 Low Band Antennas (LBA), 96 High Band Antennas (HBA) have been installed, and a large cabinet for the back-end electronics.

With this new addition, the International LOFAR Telescope (ILT) will consist of a total of 38 stations in the Netherlands, 6 in Germany, and one each in France, the United Kingdom and Sweden. More will follow.

The data collected from all LOFAR stations is processed and stored in Amsterdam, Groningen and Julich (Germany), and coordinated by Astron. International stations (i.e. stations located outside NL) can also operate in stand-alone mode, acting as a single telescope.