LOFAR

The Low-Frequency Array (LOFAR) is a large radio telescope, with an antenna network located mainly in the Netherlands, and spreading across 7 other European countries as of 2019. Originally designed and built by ASTRON, the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy, it was first opened by Queen Beatrix of The Netherlands in 2010, and has since been operated by ASTRON on behalf first of the International LOFAR Telescope (ILT) partnership and now of the LOFAR ERIC by ASTRON. LOFAR consists of a vast array of omnidirectional antennas using a modern concept, in which the signals from the separate antennas are not connected directly electrically to act as a single large antenna, as they are in most array antennas. Instead, the LOFAR dipole antennas (of two types) are distributed in stations, within which the antenna signals can be partly combined in analogue electronics, then digitised, then combined again across the full station. This step-wise approach provides great flexibility in setting and rapidly changing the directional sensitivity on the sky of an antenna station. The data from all stations are then transported over fiber to a central digital processor, and combined in software to emulate a conventional radio telescope dish with a resolving power corresponding to the greatest distance between the antenna stations across Europe. LOFAR is thus an interferometric array, usi

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