History
The One Mile Telescope was completed by the Radio Astronomy Group of Cambridge University in 1964. The telescope was used to produce the 5C catalogue of radio sources.
Observations with larger incremental spacings were used to observe individual radio sources with unprecedented sensitivity, angular resolution, and image quality. These surveys required intensive use of inverse Fourier Transforms, and were made possible by development of a new generation of computers such as the Titan.
In 1971, Sir Martin Ryle described why, in the late 1950s, radio astronomers at MRAO decided on the construction of the new One Mile telescope: "Our object was twofold. First we wanted to extend the range of our observations far back in time to the earliest days of the Universe, and this required a large increase in both sensitivity and resolution. With greater resolution we hoped that we might be able to draw radio maps of individual radio sources with sufficient detail to give some indication of the physical processes which brought them into being."
One of the One Mile Telescope dishes was temporarily used to improve the resolution of MERLIN (then MTRLI) from 1987 until Autumn 1990.
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“We aspire to be something more than stupid and timid chattels, pretending to read history and our Bibles, but desecrating every house and every day we breathe in.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)