The Rise of ILOFAR

© School of Physics, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland

In unseasonably favourable weather, the footprint for the latest LOFAR station (IE613) emerges from the ground at Birr Castle, Ireland. The ground levels are being raised by local contractors, Conneeley Building & Civil Engineering, to counter risks to the arrays posed by flooding. Deployment of the antennas is scheduled to commence in spring 2017 after a pause for winter. IE613, when operational, will extend the LOFAR baseline to ~1950kms. Commissioning is expected to be completed in early autumn of 2017.

The build can be followed at http://www.lofar.ie and http://www.twitter.com/i_lofar

Image by Joe McCauley, 10 Nov. 2016