| Date: | 1998-10-27 14:00:00 | |
| Sender: | Graham Appleby and Roger Wood <slr@gxvf.rgo.ac.uk (SLR at Herstmonceux)> | |
| Subject: | [SLR-Mail] No. 170: Future of Herstmonceux station after closure of RGO | |
| Author: | Graham Appleby and Roger Wood | |
| Content: | ******************************************************************************** SLR Electronic Mail 1998-10-27 14:00:00 UTC Message No. 170 ******************************************************************************** Author: Graham Appleby and Roger Wood Subject: Future of Herstmonceux station after closure of RGO The principal message is that the UK SLR programme will continue under new management. This message briefly outlines the circumstances of the RGO closure and gives details of staff movements. We are very sad to report that the UK Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council has decided to close the Royal Greenwich Observatory on 1998 October 31. The closure comes after a history spanning 323 years and marks the end of astronomical research associated with the name Greenwich. After more than 250 years at Greenwich the observatory moved to Herstmonceux in East Sussex in the 1950s. The telescopes were re-housed in new domes, the staff expanded and the establishment thrived. The new challenges met during this period included the building of the 2.5m Isaac Newton Telescope on the Herstmonceux site, the steady increase in international collaboration resulting in the founding of the Anglo-Australian Observatory in Australia and the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on La Palma in the Canary Isles, and the setting up of the SLR in 1983. The main part of the RGO moved to Cambridge in 1990 but the SLR group remained on the Herstmonceux site which became the European home of a Canadian university. After only eight years in Cambridge PPARC announced that closing RGO would enable them to concentrate the development of astronomical technology at one site in Edinburgh and release funds to support research in university departments. Some staff have been redeployed to other establishments, some have sought new careers elsewhere in astronomy and some have been made redundant. The building in Cambridge has been cleared of all furniture and equipment and will be taken over by Cambridge University on November 1. The SLR group will fortunately be transferred to the Natural Environment Research Council. The staff at Herstmonceux will continue to run the station as before. But Andrew Sinclair, Head of the Space Geodesy Group for many years, will take early retirement to coincide with the closure. We are very grateful to Andrew for his enthusiasm and leadership, especially the fruits of his extensive international contacts, and wish him well in his retirement. Andrew will continue an active interest in the SLR scene and his current email address will remain valid for the foreseeable future. Graham Appleby will transfer to the NERC´s Institute of Terrestrial Ecology near Huntingdon, just a few miles from Cambridge. He is in the process of transferring the Space Geodesy components of the RGO web site, including the daily quality checks and predictions. In the meantime the existing system will continue to run in parallel in Cambridge and there should be no interruption of service. Once he has the new system running smoothly he will make an announcement about the new web addresses, and also give details of his own changes of postal and email addresses. Although the loss of the RGO is a heavy blow, we are confident that our future under the NERC will continue to be enthusiastically supported and we look forward to a busy few years ahead doing what we like best: satellite laser ranging! From: slr@gxvf.rgo.ac.uk (SLR at Herstmonceux) ******************************************************************************** |