IPS Array fact-file: First light: 1967 Wavelength (frequency): 3.7 m (81.5 MHz)

IPS Array fact-file:

• First light: 1967

• Wavelength (frequency): 3.7 m (81.5 MHz)

• Baseline: 500 m

• 4096 dipoles in a phased array

• Sheep (and graduate students) used to trim grass between aerials

• Capable of mapping the northern sky in a single day

• £15,000 in 1967 (£160,000 today)

• No longer operational

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The Interplanetary Scintillation (IPS) Array (also known as the pulsar array) covered 9 hectares at its peak. It was designed to measure the size of radio galaxies, but turned out to be perfectly designed to detect pulsars.

The pulses of the first pulsar ever discovered, recorded with the IPS/Pulsar Array.

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Science:Background Information:

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