Instruments

Rosse Observatory Instruments

The Rosse Observatory is dedicated to astrophysical research using radio telescopes. Some of the instruments currently being utilised at the site are described below. 

I-LOFAR 

The Observatory is the site of the Irish Low Frequency Array (I-LOFAR) station (operational since 2018).  It operates as (two) standalone ~60-metre telescopes; it also operates as part of the pan-European LOFAR array. Birr is the most westerly station in the network, which stretches as far East as Latvia. LOFAR operates in the frequency range 10-240 MHz, excluding the FM band, and is used to study pulsars, solar and stellar flares, fast radio bursts, radio emission from planets and for SETI research. I-LOFAR data contributes the International Pulsar Timing Array (IPTA) project to detect and study gravitational waves using pulsar timing. SETI research is also taken in collaboration with Breakthrough Listen.

Magnetic Loop Antenna

The Observatory has a so-called magnetic loop antenna (operational since 2020), so-called as it interacts excusively with the magnetic part of the incident electromagnetic field; this is affectionately referred to as 'The Woodies Antenna' due to where some of its parts were sourced. It feeds a Sudden Ionospheric Disturbance (SID) Monitor. Very-low-frequency (VLF) transmissions on Earth bounce off the ionosphere and are widley used for long-distance communications, e.g. GPS signals. Solar flares impacting the Earth, or even cosmologically distant sources like gamma-ray bursts, can majorly impact the properties of the ionosphere, and disrupt such communications efforts. The SID monitor is tuned to a frequency of 24 kHz and detects any such dramatic changes in the ionosphere's properties, i.e. it is a space weather monitor.  

GReX

The Observatory is the site of Ireland's Galactic Radio eXplorer (GReX) unit (operational since 2024). This is a small but very wide-field radio telescope which works with a world-wide array of other units to form an all-sky monitor for bright, rare transient events going off in the radio sky. The scientific targets include bursts from the sun, flares from Galactic magnetars and nearby fast radio bursts. GReX units are essentially feeds from the upcoming Deep Synoptic Array 2000 (DSA-2000) telescope; as part of DSA these feeds will be mounted on 2000 x 5-metre dishes in the Western United States.