First -hand astronomy

Yuri Pidoplagora , Phd, N.S. The University of Tasmania (Hobart, Tasmania, Australia) told the TRV-hobby about the daily life of one of the observatories on the distant southern continent.

The Seduna airport line was to match this village with a population of about 2 thousand people and only a few streets. A small “hut” with a gable roof, on which the “Seduna Airport” is written in large letters. From my temporarily “native” Hobart, the capital of the only island state of Australia - Tasmania, my partner Jamie McCallum got here with two transfers. To the final point, they flew a small aircraft of a regional airline, the flights of which are connected by two dozen few people familiar Australian places.

While we received the keys and dealt with the rental machine, the airport and parking were empty: the plane flew away, the flew passengers left, the airport employees were closed with amazing speed and also disappeared. We drove towards the village along a completely empty highway. I immediately remembered the Australian joke: "Our movement is left -handed, but most often it does not matter." An ordinary road, it would be difficult to guess that this is the famous Australian highway No. 1, the main highway connecting the east coast of Australia with the Western. Seduna survives mainly as a “transshipment point” on this highway, offering travelers food, shelter and simple sights.

We were only interested in this list from this list. In a small supermarket, we stocked up for ten days, and then with pleasure we had dinner with a fried shark in a restaurant on the embankment, watching the sun sitting in the ocean. And already at dusk, our expedition, as part of two researchers of the University of Tasmania, finally went to its destination-the Seduna radio-resistance.

Here, the significance of both Seduna and the coastal highway immediately became clear. After a few kilometers of movement, deep into the continent, the solid coating on the road disappeared, replacing gravel with an increasing degree of breakdown. Approximately then, on both sides of the road, all the signs of civilization disappeared. Only occasionally in the distance was it possible to make out the lights of the farm estates, the rest of the time endless fields poorly distinguishable in the darkness stretched in all directions.

In the complete absence of some noticeable details of the landscape, the trip at night along an empty unfamiliar road with a turtle seemed endless. Finally, two red lights on the antenna appeared in the distance: arrived!

As I later saw in the light of day, we reached not only the observatory, but also the edges relatively inhabited by agricultural zone. The real frontier of civilization! In several hundred meters, a primitive South Australian forest begins behind the observatory fence. And stretches to the horizon and further. On the map, the next highway runs about 400 km to the north, and before it - only dense thickets of stunted acacia and eucalyptus. The population density is zero.

The observatory complex was huge. The antenna is surrounded by a group of buildings, many of which are connected to each other, around a rather extensive “yard” around, and all this is fenced with a sinister appearance with a high fence with barbed wire.

Initially, the entire complex belonged to the OTC (the Transokean Telecommunication Commission), a government organization that was engaged in all types of long -term communications. The main Australian satellite station station was located here. After two of its 30-meter antennas (taking and transmitting) there was about half of the entire information exchange of Australia with the outside world. The station was seriously guarded as a strategic object. All this required dozens of employees and appropriate conditions.

But then, on the bottom of the ocean, they made fiber, and the connection through the satellite lost its extreme significance. OTC has undergone a number of reorganizations and became a private corporation. As a result of all the changes by the beginning of the 90s, the Sedun station decided to close. One antenna was moved, the other was prepared to be sent to a landfill.

Fortunately, instead of destruction, the station decided to transfer to one of the Australian universities. It is unlikely that this was moved by the desire to help science, rather the decision was caused by the desire to avoid expenses for the disposal of equipment and rehabilitation of the land plot. Given the very strict environmental legislation of Australia, such expenses would be very impressive. Nevertheless, radiostronomy and science as a whole remained won. The happy user of the station was one of the “pillars” of the Australian radiostronomy, the University of Tasmania, where I am now working.

Seduna station became a very valuable acquisition. In the radio interferometry with super -long bases (RSDB/VLBI), the position of the surveillance station is of key importance. Seduna very successfully fits into the network of Australian radiostronomic antennas, filling the “hole” between the stations of the eastern and western coast.

Of course, converting the satellite communication station into the telescope is not easy, it is necessary to change almost the entire “filling”. Perestroika work lasted several years, the station went into operation only by the end of the 90s. Since then, it has been one of the “workhorses” of the Australian network VLBI (LBA).

Technical support for such a converted radio telescope is mainly to look after a conglomerate of difficult to interact analog equipment and dozens of programs on a variety of computer platforms, all this is from a variety of eras. The control panels of the early 70s are mixed with the latest devices, some functions are controlled by computers of the late 80s, others are most modern. The main motto: "If it works, do not touch it!"

Several times a year, for about ten days of “sessions”, all LBA stations work as a whole. In such periods, each station needs the constant presence of specialists, this time for Seduna - me and Jamie. Alas, even if you do not touch anything, sooner or later something stops working. And then immediate intervention is necessary.

Unlike optical astronomy, radioceurization can be carried out at any time of the day. Therefore, all 10 days of the telescope session work almost continuously, following a pre -planned and carefully optimized program. Only sometimes there are small breaks to control or reconfigure equipment. The main priority is to minimize any loss of observation time. If the telescope has to be stopped due to some kind of breakdown or bad weather conditions, then you just physically feel how the seconds of lost time are dripping.

When there is no one from Tasmania in Sedun, life at the station also does not stop. The main merit in this belongs to the caretaker Bev Bedson. I met her the day after the arrival, when Bev arrived to help us prepare the telescope for observations, and since then I have not ceased to admire her.

Bev and her husband Mike live in the village and make almost everything at the radio -astronomical station, from purely household trifles to servicing and repairing equipment.

In appearance both Bev and T -shirt in seventy. The rules of politeness prevented me from clarifying their age and figure out how they know and can do everything that they do here. Mike himself revealed a little secret, saying that at a younger age he was a meteorologist and worked in the field at almost all Australian weather stations, including two Antarctic wintering. But, by his own admission, he began to help his wife only recently and in many ways learning from her.

And Bev does "a lot and even more." Especially impressive is the volume of diverse operations that comes to her share in relation to the entire analogue and digital equipment of the station. Including work on the antenna here and the change of its working elements.

Usually, a special class of specially trained technicians is engaged in the antenna, and the rest of the staff happens there only on excursions. In Sedun, you have to climb there many times: day and night, in any weather, and not with entertaining goals.

By the standards of radio telescopes, 30 m is a small antenna, it cannot be compared with 100 -meter giants in Green Bank or Effelsberg. But when you approach her, it does not seem small at all, it is a multi-level community of about a 5-story house high, to the last levels and the very surface of the “plate” can only be reached through narrow vertical stairs.

During the session, it so happened that the antenna was emergency blocked in a turn. It could be unlocked only from the hardware on the antenna itself. But in the position in which the antenna froze, it was impossible to climb on it just like that: the bridge to the upper sections hung over the empty space, it could not reach it. Yes, even night and a strong wind. Neither I nor Jamie dared to jump: they got a difficult way, finding a portable staircase in the warehouse. But Bev in the same precise position of the antenna jumped several times, she jokingly calls it a “jump of faith”.

Being a person literally indispensable, Beva nevertheless evaluates his position with a fair amount of modesty and humor. She complained to me that she did not always understand what she was asked to make her from Hobart: “I can do something, but it makes sense ...” and adds with genuine shyness: “And I also have a very ugly one.”

Speaking of Bev and T -shirt, one cannot but say a few words about Jamie. He is approximately my peer and works in a similar position, but, unlike me, who was scrapped in various observatories in the world, he, indigenous Tasman, has worked in Tasmania for all 15 years of his career and knows the telescopes subordinates to the Tasmania University as his own fingers. Therefore, on a business trip to Sedun, I perceived him as a mentor. Yes, if all my mentors were like that! Calm, non -sounding, inseparable, Jamie even answered the most stupid questions as if these were valuable remarks. And, despite the fact that I was essentially “led”, he emphasized our equality in everything.

On the very first day in Sedun, I saw how a tandem Jamie and Bev works harmoniously. Before the observations, Bev complained that one of the frequency mixers stopped working. Working in America and Europe taught me to relate to such situations without much pet: one of the “boxes” stopped working, we must turn to the techniques, and it will be replaced with a new “box”. There is simply no new one here. It is necessary to either fix the old one, or collect a new of the existing components. And for the entire term - two days, because then observations begin.

But neither Jamie nor Bev saw in this situation nothing unusual and immediately took up work. The device was quickly removed and disassembled, all connections were tested and a faulty element was found. A few rations - and the device is back in the ranks.

Unfortunately, on the same day another breakdown was discovered, with which we could not cope on our own. The situation is quite extraordinary in the sense that it was connected ... with a rope mount. Yes, one of the mobile elements on the antenna is original and simply controlled according to the principle of sailing ships, two “ends”. But in preparation for observations, one of the “ends” of sags. In order to re -fix it, a real swer was needed, capable of moving along the antenna outside the forests and sites.

And the next day (on Sunday!) The main technician of the Hobart Observatory Brett Raid flew to us. He flew out in the morning, arrived in Sedun in the evening, already at dusk climbed onto the antenna, did everything with our help until night, somehow slept for several hours and in the morning on Monday flew back to be in Hobart and help there. Here is another wonderful example of Australian effectiveness!

Alas, in a short article you can’t tell about everything. During his stay in Sedun, my share had enough boring many hours of vigil of the terminals, and midnight howls, and repair work, and routes, and errors, and delights.

At first glance, this technical work and a scientist should care much, because for us the most important thing is the final data and their interpretation. But since the time of laboratory work on Fiztekh, I have learned how important every “technical” trifle is important in experimental science. In our time, a narrow specialization, I could not help but appreciate the rare chance to directly trace the entire complex chain from the radio signal from the depths of the universe to digitized results.

In addition, there is something in such a direct application of hands on a piece of land far from the whole from the whole, among amazing people, which fills you with a sense of involvement. Involvement in real science, and in the beautiful starry sky, and in the endless of our planet, and, most importantly, to humanity, seeking and striving upward.