page_title: Jodrell Bank Observatory
section_title: Visitor facilities, and events
hierarchical_section_title: Jodrell Bank Observatory / Visitor facilities, and events
caption_attribution_description: English: The Lovell Telescope during Jodrell Bank Live at Jodrell Bank Observatory
context_page_description: The Jodrell Bank Observatory – originally the Jodrell Bank Experimental Station and from 1966 to 1999, the Nuffield Radio Astronomy Laboratories – hosts a number of radio telescopes, and is part of the Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics at the University of Manchester. The observatory was established in 1945 by Bernard Lovell, a radio astronomer at the University of Manchester to investigate cosmic rays after his work on radar during the Second World War. It has since played an important role in the research of meteoroids, quasars, pulsars, masers and gravitational lenses, and was heavily involved with the tracking of space probes at the start of the Space Age. The managing director of the observatory is Professor Simon Garrington.
  The main telescope at the observatory is the Lovell Telescope. Its diameter of 250 ft makes it the third largest steerable radio telescope in the world. There are three other active telescopes at the observatory; the Mark II, and 42 ft and 7 m diameter radio telescopes.
context_section_description: A visitors' centre opened on 19 April 1971 by the Duke of Devonshire, attracted around 120,000 visitors per year. It covered the history of Jodrell Bank and had a planetarium and 3D theatre hosting simulated trips to Mars.
  Asbestos in the visitors' centre buildings led to its demolition in 2003 leaving a remnant of its far end. A marquee was set up in its grounds while a new science centre was planned. The plans were shelved when Victoria University of Manchester and UMIST merged to become the University of Manchester in 2004, leaving the interim centre, which received around 70,000 visitors a year.
  In October 2010, work on a new visitor centre started and the Jodrell Bank Discovery Centre opened on 11 April 2011. It includes an entrance building, the Planet Pavilion, a Space Pavilion for exhibitions and events, a glass-walled cafe with a view of the Lovell Telescope and an outdoor dining area, an education space, and landscaped gardens including the Galaxy Maze. A large orrery was installed in 2013. It does not, however, include a planetarium, though a small inflatable planetarium dome has been in use on the site in recent years.
  The visitor centre is open to daily and organises public outreach events, including public lectures, star parties, and "ask an astronomer" sessions.
  A path around the Lovell telescope is approximately 20 m from the telescope's outer railway, information boards explain how the telescope works and the research that is done with it.
  The 35 acres (140,000 m²) arboretum, created in 1972, houses the UK's national collections of crab apple Malus and mountain ash Sorbus species, and the Heather Society's Calluna collection. The arboretum also has a small scale model of the solar system, the scale is approximately 1:5,000,000,000. At Jodrell Bank, as part of the SpacedOut project, is the Sun in a 1:15,000,000 scale model of the solar system covering Britain.
  On 7 July 2010, it was announced that the observatory was being considered for the 2011 United Kingdom Tentative List for World Heritage Site status. It was announced on 22 March 2011 that it was on the UK government's shortlist. In January 2018, it became the UK's candidate for World Heritage status.
  In July 2011 the visitor centre and observatory hosted "Jodrell Bank Live" – a rock concert with bands including The Flaming Lips, British Sea Power, Wave Machines, OK GO and Alice Gold. On 23 July 2012, Elbow performed live at the observatory and filmed a documentary of the event and the facility which was released as a live CD/DVD of the concert.
  On 31 August 2013, Jodrell Bank hosted a concert performed by the Halle Orchestra to commemorate what would have been Lovell's 100th birthday. As well as a number of operatic performances during the day, the evening Halle performance saw numbers such as themes from Star Trek, Star Wars and Doctor Who among others. The main Lovell telescope was rotated to face the onlooking crowd and used as a huge projection screen showing various animated planetary effects. During the interval the 'screen' was used to show a history of Lovell's work and Jodrell Bank.
  There is an astronomy podcast from the observatory, named The Jodcast. The BBC television programme Stargazing Live is hosted in the control room of the observatory. The programme has had four series, in January 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014.
  Since 2016, the observatory hosted Bluedot, a music and science festival, featuring musical acts such as Public Service Broadcasting, The Chemical Brothers, as well as talks by scientists and scientific communicators such as Jim Al-Khalili and Richard Dawkins.
caption: The Lovell Telescope illuminated during Jodrell Bank Live
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