Grote ReberPrint Page

A memorial at the site of the Molonglo Observatory Synthesis Telescope (MOST), commemorates Grote Reber. The monument includes some of his ashes and the design of the original telescope system is based in his pioneering radio astronomy in the United States of America and Australia.

Grote Reber was the father of radio astronomy, being the first person to build a "big dish" antenna for the purpose of mapping the sky at radio frequencies. He discovered many discrete radio sources, and he mapped the band of bright radio emission from the Milky Way Galaxy.

Reber came to Tasmania in the late 1950`s because of its unique location at high magnetic latitude in the southern hemisphere. He spent 40 years studying low frequency emissions with telescopes he built himself, first in partnership with the University of Tasmania School of Physics, and later on his own at Bothwell. His accomplishments are remarkable, not only in radio astronomy but also in electrical powered transport, in carbon dating of aboriginal settlements, and in the patterns made by growing bean plants. 

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