IAU-URSI HISTORICAL RADIO ASTRONOMY WORKING GROUP

Resources on History of Radio Astronomy

Parent Commissions

• IAU
  • Commission B4 ((Radio Astronomy)
  • Commission C3 (History of Astronomy) Web pages, and the Web page.
• URSI      Commission J (Radio Astronomy, previously Commission V) Resources:
  • 100 Years of the International Union of Radio Science, URSI Press, 2021. Editors: Philip Wilkinson, Paul S. Cannon, W. Ross Stone. Includes Jaap Baars' chapter on Commission J, page 589.
  • Triennial Reports submitted by the Commission Chair are available in pdf format for 1994-1996, 1997-1999, 1999-2002, 2002-2005, 2005-2008, 2008-2011, 2011-2014, 2014-2017.
  • Records of the Commission business meetings are available in pdf format for the following years: 1946, 1948, 1950, 1952, 1954, 1957, 1960, 1963, 1966, 1969, 1972, 1975, 1978, 1996, 1999, 2002, 2005, 2008, 2011, 2014, 2017
  • Notes on the Triennial Reports and Business Meeting Records:
    • Reports for the years 1978-1993 are in the process of being located, and will be included when available.
    • The 1946-1978 meeting records are a mixture of Commission business and scientific and national reports. The list of contents for the 1954-1966 reports include sets of national reports, but not the reports themselves. These will be included when available.
    • We thank Ms Inge Heleu at the URSI Secretariat for her work in retrieving the reports.

Publications

• Master Lists of Publications on Historical Radio Astronomy: The Master Lists of books and journals have been compiled with input from the members of the WG HRA, and are believed to be complete up to the end of 2023. They will be updated once a year via a call to the WG for new publications.
  • Master List: Journals, conference papers, and book chapters updated through 2023.
  • Master List: Books and full journal issues updated through 2023. Links are provided for Open Access titles.
• The History of Radio Astronomy: A Bibliography, 1898-1983, compiled by Sarah Stevens-Rayburn.
• Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage
• Open Access books (available with free and unlimited access):
  • Goss, W.M., Hooker, C., and Ekers, R.D. Joe Pawsey and the Founding of Australian Radio Astronomy - Early Discoveries, from the Sun to the Cosmos. Springer, 2023. See also the extensive supplementary electronic material provided here.
  • Kellermann, K.I., Bouton, E.N., and Brandt, S.S. Open Skies: The National Radio Astronomy Observatory and Its Impact on US Radio Astronomy. Springer, 2020. See also scans of cited material in the NRAO/AUI Archives listed here.
  • Orchiston, W., Robertson, P., and Sullivan, W.T. III. Golden Years of Australian Radio Astronomy: An Illustrated History. Springer, 2021.
  • Rendong Nan, ed. The Sky Eye: Five-Hundred-Meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST). Springer, 2021.
  • Schlizzi, R.T., Ekers, R.D., Dewdney, Peter E., and Crosby, P. The Square Kilometre Array: A Science Mega-Project in the Making, 1990-2012. Springer, 2024.
  • Vanden Bout, P.A., Dickman, R.L., and Plunkett, A.L. The ALMA Telescope - The Story of a Science Mega-Project. Cambridge University Press, 2023.

Archives

• National Radio Astronomy Observatory Archives: Institutional records for NRAO. Papers of individuals: Donald C. Backer, Alan H. Barrett, Ronald N. Bracewell, Robert L. Brown, Bernard F. Burke, Marshall H. Cohen, John W. Findlay, Mark A. Gordon, David S. Heeschen, David E. Hogg, Kenneth I. Kellermann, John D. Kraus, Grote Reber, Morton S. Roberts, Arthur M. Shalloway, A. Richard Thompson, James S. Ulvestad, Paul A. Vanden Bout, and Campbell M. Wade, as well as Woodruff T. Sullivan's radio astronomy history research materials and his oral interviews with radio astronomers.
• CSIRO Radio Astronomy Image Archive. The CSIRO Radio Astronomy Image Archive holds a collection of over 15,000 images that relate to the early history of radio astronomy in Australia. These images were taken between 1943 and 1996, by professional photographers at the CSIRO Division of Radiophysics and the CSIRO Australia Telescope National Facility.
• Cornell University resources on Arecibo Observatory:
  • An Oral History of the Arecibo Observatory, a collection of oral histories and conversations.
  • Arecibo Ionospheric Observatory records in the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library.

Individual Astronomers

• Nan Dieter Conklin: A Life in Science: a Web resource in which Nannielou Hepburn Dieter Conklin describes her career as one of the earliest US women working in radio astronomy.
• Doc Ewen: The Horn, HI, and other events in U.S. Radio Astronomy: a Web resource describing H.I. (Doc) Ewen's work from 1948 through the 1990s.
• Have Gen, Will Travel: Imperfect Images from the Life of a Radio Astronomer, J.A. (Jim) Roberts (1927- ) reminisces about his life and career in radio astronomy.

Workshops and History Talks

• Presentations given at Working Group meetings during IAU and URSI General Assemblies are on the Working Group Meetings page.
• An ongoing record of a wide variety of other talks on radio astronomy history are on the Working Group History Talks page.

Early Radio Astronomy Courses

• Early Radio Astronomy Courses: Course notes in pdf of two early radio astronomy courses:

  • The first known academic course specifically on radio astronomy was taught by Hendrik C. van de Hulst (1918-2000), first at Leiden in Fall 1950, then again in Spring semester 1951 as Astronomy 241b at Harvard University, where van de Hulst was a Visiting Professor.
  • Another early course in radio astronomy was given at the California Institute of Technology in both the Spring and Fall terms of 1958 as Ay 133 by Kevin C. Westfold (1921-2001)), then a Visiting Professor on leave from the Radiophysics Division, Sydney.

Recognized Historic Radio Telescopes

• Reber Radio Telescope, Green Bank, West Virginia, USA, was designated as a [US] National Historical Landmark in 1990. The telescope was designed and built by Grote Reber in 1937, the first parabolic antenna specifically designed and built to do research in the newly emerging field of radio astronomy. After some years in storage at National Bureau of Standards, in 1958-1960 Reber used original parts to reconstruct the telescope at the entrance of the Green Bank Observatory. In 1972 the telescope was listed on the National Register of Historic Places by the Antiquities Commission of the State of West Virginia.
• The Stockert 25m radio telescope in Stockert, Germany, was inaugurated in 1956 and listed as an historical Monument in the UNESCO Astronomy and World Heritage portal in 1999.
• In 2007, the Dwingeloo 25 meter radio telescope in Dwingeloo, The Netherlands, was recognized as a protected national monument by the Netherlands National Cultural Heritage Agency.
• The Bell Labs 20 Foot Horn Antenna, built by Bell Labs in 1960 in Holmdel, New Jersey, USA, was used by Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson in 1964-1965 for their Nobel Prize-winning discovery of the Cosmic Microwave Background. The horn was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1989, and to the American Physical Society's list of Historic Sites in 2008.
• The Parkes 64m Radio Telescope, affectionately known as "the Dish," has been in operation since 1961, and, as one of the telescopes comprising CSIRO's Australia Telescope National Facility, continues to be at the forefront of astronomical discovery. Declared an Australian Heritage Site on 10 August 2020, "Parkes Observatory is nationally significant in the course of Australian cultural history for its importance to the history of Australian astronomy, and for its association with the Apollo 11 moon landing."
• Puerto Rico's Arecibo Telescope, National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center, was dedicated in 1963 and, until its final collapse on 1 December 2020, was the world's largest single-aperture telescope, with capabilities derived from its unique design. If functioned actively as a radar telescope and passively as a radio telescope, a versitility that led to many important discoveries. It was declared an IEEE Milestone in 2001, and added to the National Register of Historic Places in September 2008.
• Jodrell Bank Observatory in northwest England was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2019 because of its importance in the pioneering phase and later evolution of radio astronomy.
• 6-m Millimeter Radio Telescope in Mitaka, Japan, added to 2019 Japan Astronomical Heritage list. Built in 1970 by the Tokyo Astronomical Observatory (predecessor of NAOJ), it was the third millimeter-wave radio telescope in the world and the first in Japan.

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