Jodrell Bank

Nerdy day trips part 14 – or what to do when everyone seems to be suffering from a snotty cold. We visited friends down in Manchester this week and had wanted to do something interesting with the kids. We were staying out near Saddleworth so I had hoped to do something a bit outdoors orientated and the weather, for once, obliged. Unfortunately, the gods of man-flu didn’t so we had to go for plan B – a trip to see the Jodrell Bank Observatory.

I was last at Jodrell Bank some 30 years ago and since that time quite a bit of the site has been rebuilt. This was partly due to the previous visitor centre having to be demolished due to asbestos issues. The new visitor centre is quite impressive although it no longer has the planetarium. They do have a lecture theatre which had a half hour talk on the recent solar eclipse and gave my daughter ample chance to show off her knowledge of the lunar landings (which they have recently covered at school.)

The centre piece of the observatory is still the massive Lovell radio-telescope which was in use whilst we were there. It’s actually far bigger than I remembered it and we were able to see it being repositioned whilst we were there. It is a truly remarkable feat of engineering to say nothing of the discoveries which it has managed to achieve in its near 60 years of operation.

Overall it was a very worthwhile trip and managed to make everyone forget about snotty noses for a while. Then again, it could be worse – I seem to recall Doctor Who having a less than successful day out there…