THE DOMINION RADIO ASTROPHYSICAL OBSERVATORY - OBSERVATOIRE FÉDÉRAL DE RADIOASTROPHYSIQUE

The Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory was built in the late 1950s at White Lake, south of Skaha Lake, near Penticton, British Columbia (west coast). It is mainly the work of Carlyle Smith Beals (1899-1979), a renowned astronomer who put all his energy into promoting the field of astrophysics in Canada. The first parabolic antenna installed was 25.6 m long, and was put into operation in 1960. Two years later, a second radio telescope was installed, then the entire observatory was operational in 1964, covering some 65,000 m² of surface area! Interferometry quickly became necessary (a technique consisting of networking various antennas to obtain the accuracy of a much larger antenna) and the observatory decided to put all its efforts into this very promising new technique. Today, the "synthetic radio telescope" thus created consists of 7 parabolic antennas, each 8.5 m in diameter, operating continuously, 24 hours a day. They are dedicated to mapping our galaxy, the Milky Way. The observatory site is now managed by the Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics of the National Research Council of Canada.