In the winter season Dwingeloo is dead . When you've seen a radio telescope at work, you'll understand how much happens there. I nside the Dwingeloo Radio Institute there is a lot more to see. Computers, for one. Most of them are technicians who support the Dwingeloo Radio Telescope and the Westerbork Array , which lies approximately 25 km north, and the Mauna Kea and La Palma observatories abroad.
T here are only a few astronomers, who mainly work in the field of radio astronomy.
Also a bit of optical astronomy is conducted, but I don't know what exactly. The Netherlands Foundation for Research in Astronomy is housed at this place. The old building was very leaky. Where To Stay I f you, as a hitchhiker, want to have nice lodgings around Dwingeloo, you should preferably be an astronomer, and second, get invited to the institute. That usually implies that you will have to do some astronomical work there, but that's not so much if you see what you get back for it.