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E-Merlin "Super-Telescope" Switched On

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the ip-over-avian-carrier-would-have-been-better dept.

Smivs writes to tell us that one of the world's most powerful telescope arrays has been switched on with great success. Seven radio telescopes in the UK have been linked with optical fiber, replacing the older microwave tech that connected them previously. One researcher compared the move to a broadband upgrade from dial-up. Research teams will now be able to do in one day what previously took them three years.

41 comments

  1. shocking by sgt+scrub · · Score: 3, Funny

    The UK can link telescopes together with fiber but my ISP, billion dollar company, cant get me fios 5 miles south of downtown Dallas. Sigh.

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    1. Re:shocking by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You are very inconsiderate of the poor ISP's business. See, they are trying to run a business and that means a lot of responsibilities. They do a LOT of things to run this business! It is very complicated. They have to take your money, AND your tax money. See it is really difficult, you should give them more credit (or money).

    2. Re:shocking by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      No point for your area. You'll be the first on metered net service, and that'll kill the desire for a fat pipe.

    3. Re:shocking by Hmmm2000 · · Score: 3, Funny

      Simple solution, put a telescope in your back yard, and E-Merlin will hook you up with fiber asap!

    4. Re:shocking by camperdave · · Score: 3, Funny

      I'm sure if you cough up 80 million pounds (116 million US$) like these guys did, that there would be plenty of ISPs willing to run FIOS to your home.

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    5. Re:shocking by LighterShadeOfBlack · · Score: 3, Informative

      To be fair it did take four years to connect those seven telescopes at a cost of £8.1 million. Granted those figures don't really relate to laying fibre for domestic internet but needless to say it isn't a quick or a cheap endeavour.

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    6. Re:shocking by Lord+Bitman · · Score: 3, Funny

      Yeah, when the little guys like the UK are out-pacing billion-dollar companies, what is the world coming to?

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    7. Re:shocking by Mannerism · · Score: 2, Informative

      Unfortunately, you still get 30GB bitcap.

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  2. lot-o-data by dnormant · · Score: 3, Insightful

    TFA doesn't mention it but I would assume they have upgraded their storage and processing power to accommodate the additional data.

    1. Re:lot-o-data by robkill · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Given the age of the older microwave links, plus the fact they were doing the processing, but were bandwidth-limited, it's probable that they've had the storage and processing power for a while, but the bandwidth infrastructure is now just catching up.

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    2. Re:lot-o-data by jd · · Score: 4, Informative

      The aliens supply that.

      Seriously, that's a good question. Jodrell Bank Radio Telescope (otherwise known as the Lovell Telescope), a key part of eMerlin, was threatened with closure due to a budget shortfall for science and research. Jodrell Bank was deemed, by British ministers, to be of relatively little significance.

      Given that, and given the problems with then getting everything done on time, upgrading their computer facilities might not have been so easy. Until the budget was fixed, they had nothing to buy equipment with. They were considering scrapping eMerlin altogether because they couldn't find the money to get the network in place, let alone process the data.

      Buying computer equipment last-minute in a panic, especially when you've shielding constraints from hell and a lot of media visibility, is not a good idea. There's absolutely no telling if they had the cash to buy enough compute power even to record the data, let alone crunch it. We will know that when it's fully online and results start coming through.

      ObTrivia: Brian May, guitarist for Queen, studied readio astronomy under Professor Lovell and may well have ended up a director for the telescope (and eMerlin) if his music hasn't, ummm, diverted his attention.

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    3. Re:lot-o-data by footnmouth · · Score: 2, Interesting

      the bloke in the office opposite me is a part of this. Trust me, they have the money and the track record to make sure it's done properly.

      and he gets to live and work in Cornwall on big science - I hate him..... :-)

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    4. Re:lot-o-data by Extremus · · Score: 2, Insightful
      This strangely reminds my of something I have read in a Tanenbaum book:

      Never Underestimate The Bandwidth of A Station Wagon Full Of Magnetic Tapes Hurtling Down The Highway

    5. Re:lot-o-data by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      ObTrivia: Brian May, guitarist for Queen, studied readio astronomy under Professor Lovell and may well have ended up a director for the telescope (and eMerlin) if his music hasn't, ummm, diverted his attention.

      Brian May never touched radio astronomy; he did his PhD research on Zodiacal light at Imperial College and was offered a postdoc position at Jodrell Bank, but other pursuits diverted him.

    6. Re:lot-o-data by timeOday · · Score: 1

      An oldie but goodie. But the older it gets the less true it is. Compared to an ISDN line shared across an entire department? Sure. Compared to a dedicated fiber line with modern switching hardware, not so much.

    7. Re:lot-o-data by fractoid · · Score: 1

      Ah, but the latency of the station wagon for transferring, say, 5gb of data over 150kms is pretty horrible. Especially so when you're trying to coordinate observations in realtime to detect interesting events.

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    8. Re:lot-o-data by stevelinton · · Score: 1

      Sure, but now you can fill the station wagon with 64GB flash drives or 2TB hard drives.

    9. Re:lot-o-data by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Compared to a flock of pigeons carrying 32GB SD cards, hardly at all.

    10. Re:lot-o-data by timeOday · · Score: 1

      Ultimately what matters is how long it takes to get data into RAM where it will be processed, right? With a dedicated fiber line, maybe pre-staging the data onto hard drives in the computer isn't even that important anymore. Just store it somewhere safe, then access it over the network when and if you need it. I'm not even sure having a hard drive cache for the web browser is all that beneficial anymore.

  3. So... by XPeter · · Score: 3, Funny

    Did they find my little green friends yet? ;)

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    1. Re:So... by chill · · Score: 4, Funny

      This is Slashdot. You expect us to believe you have friends? Okay, okay. You did say "green" and not "girl", so maybe...

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    2. Re:So... by Fluffeh · · Score: 4, Funny

      Okay, okay. You did say "green" and not "girl", so maybe...

      I believe you just clarified his "left" and his "right".

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    3. Re:So... by Hurricane78 · · Score: 2, Informative

      But he didn't say "inflatable"... ^^

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    4. Re:So... by anonymousNR · · Score: 0

      but seriously it would be awesome to see what the new results look like.

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    5. Re:So... by fractoid · · Score: 1

      Or "opposable". :P

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      Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
    6. Re:So... by BJ_Covert_Action · · Score: 1

      No, to track them down we're going to need more power....or better yet...

      ...we could use a Beowulf Cluster of these!

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  4. Palimpsest by auric_dude · · Score: 0

    Let me know when Dr. Eleanor "Ellie" Arroway & NSF Director David Drumlin need help decoding the freshly downloaded palimpsest.

  5. That was easy by clarkkent09 · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Research teams will now be able to do in one day what previously took them three years.

    So they can do 1000 times more just by upgrading the speed of the connection between the telescopes? That's pretty remarkable, why didn't they do it earlier?

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    1. Re:That was easy by interkin3tic · · Score: 1

      I'm going to guess just from reading the title that they couldn't find the switch. Maybe they were too busy doing the thing that took them three years to look for it. It's great that they have an e-merlin though, now they just need an e-arthur.

    2. Re:That was easy by dontmakemethink · · Score: 1

      Research teams will now be able to do in one day what previously took them three years. So they can do 1000 times more just by upgrading the speed of the connection between the telescopes? That's pretty remarkable, why didn't they do it earlier?

      Because now they're expected to actually FIND something of significance instead of photoshopping Keeley Hazell's cleavage onto planetary nebulae.

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    3. Re:That was easy by MrMr · · Score: 1

      ..will now be able to do in one day what previously took them three years
      I can sea that:
      - drink 6000 cups of tea
      - download all the porn
      - write a 1 page report on a vague blip

    4. Re:That was easy by SlashDev · · Score: 1

      Now IS earlier

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  6. I'm holding out by mc1138 · · Score: 2

    For my Smell-O-Scope!

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    1. Re:I'm holding out by Ghworg · · Score: 1

      or some sort of Death Clock.

  7. 3 years to do it on dial up by CubicleView · · Score: 1

    A whole day on broadband... An improvement to be sure, but I think the money would have been better spent on viagra.

  8. The question must be asked: by hyades1 · · Score: 1

    Can another nekkid picture of Sarkozy's wife's ass be far "behind"?

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  9. Out of how many? by b4dc0d3r · · Score: 1

    one of the world's most powerful telescope arrays

    It could be one of the top ten, one of the top hundred, or one of the top in the history of ever. This phrase conveys no useful information. Please be a little more specific next time, or skip the hyperbole. As far as I know there are millions of these and this is one of them.

  10. US NM radio telescopes mixed analog/digital by peter303 · · Score: 1

    The US New Mexico radio telescope facility (the scene of countless scifi movies) is upgrading its current eight-band analog system to a mixed 16K band hybrid digital/analog system. The old system transmitted the analog signal via microwave pipes from up to 26 telescopes up to 8 miles apart. Then the signals were analog cross-correlated synthesized aperture to simulate a multi-mile telescope. When I visited in 2008 they said they were going to digitize the signal at the telescope, transmit it to the central computer facility, where it was converted back into analog and cross-correlated. They could capture 16K frequency bands this way. I didnt understand why they dont do the cross-correlation digitally. The highest frequency is 50 gigahertz, within the range of the fastest specialty chips.

  11. wow by rastoboy29 · · Score: 1

    That is, literally, really amazing.

    I'm surprised there aren't more posts on this topic.  Isn't anyone interested?

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